Wukong Rework [Quick Draft for Critique]

ModThe Djinn·2/4/2018, 2:28:05 AM·27 votes·2,031 views

Edit: To the people behind the downvotes: by all means downvote it if you don't like it, but it's very helpful to me if you can let me know WHY you don't like it. Would be greatly appreciated. :)

Edit 2: Added in some decoy play on the W, with an early detonate to let it be a more reliable in-combat tool or a longer duration if you want to use it for trickery. Most of the kit's complexity is now in this ability, which is likely fine for a character like Wukong.

#WUKONG

Since I've seen a lot of Wukong comments recently, I decided to take a quick pass at a Wukong rework, with the intended purpose of keeping changes as small scope as possible. The goal was to see if I could take his current theme of mobile skirmishing bruiser and drag him a little more into a sustained combat pattern and less into an assassin pattern, which also hitting his theme of skilled combatant a bit more by making his spells a little more interactive. The goal is a tricky, sustained-DPS mobile monkey who dances around the battlefield.

This is a quick, 15-minute draft, so expect flaws, and definitely hit me up with comments/critique.


NIMBUS DANCE Wukong revels in combat. Whenever he deals physical damage to an enemy champion or large monster he gains 3/3.5/4/4.5/5 armor and magic resistance (at levels 1/3/5/9/12/15/18) for 4 seconds, stacking up to 10 times. Abilities that hit multiple champions grant multiple stacks.

CRUSHING BLOW Wukong spins around, gaining movement speed and dealing physical damage to nearby enemies before elongating his staff and slamming it in the target direction, dealing additional physical damage, applying on-hit effects, and greatly slowing targets struck, decaying quickly over 1 second. He may move while casting this ability, and the final slam is targeted along the vector of the initial cast (like Taric's stun or Lucian's ultimate). Scales on total AD and bonus health. Cooldown: 9/8/7/6/5.

Designer Notes: I feel this is a much more interactive ability that lets us bake some more interesting skill tests into Wukong's kit. It also helps his jungling and gives more counterplay to his damage, letting us give him a bit more of an interesting pattern other than E+QQQQQ. A cool side-effect is the potential for multi-target Trinity Force procs if you get the line up properly, and the slow gives you a bit more stickiness and lets you play positioning games, which Wukong loves.

SMOKEPOPPY Wukong leaves a decoy behind him for 1.5 seconds, blinks to target location within 250 range and becomes invisible for 1.5 seconds. After 0.5 seconds the ability can be reactivated to detonate the decoy in a cloud of smoke, dealing DoT magic damage and marking all nearby enemy champions. If Wukong remains invisible for the full duration, his next attack against a marked enemy deals significant bonus physical damage and reduces their armor for 4 seconds. First portion scales on AP, second portion on total AD.

Auto-attacks against enemy champions and large/epic monsters reduce the cooldown of Smokepoppy by 1 second. Cooldown: 18/17/16/15/14 seconds.

EDIT: Added back in some decoy play, since it was deeply missed. Added the ability to detonate it early to retain its combat functionality in situations where trickery isn't needed. Additionally, the old "pretend to decoy and stand still" trick may be empowered now, due to the threat of the damage spike by the second half of the ability encouraging people to play cautiously when approaching a decoy.

Designer Notes: This design gives Wukong some interesting choices to make, as Smokepoppy becomes a potentially useful engagement tool at the expense of damage, or a potentially useful burst DPS tool with the counterplay of having to stick to your target (ala Fizz W). It discourages simply spamming it and attacking anyway, which is the current interaction in-combat, and the DoT ensures that he won't have jungle monsters reset on him. It allows him to gank safer targets at the expense of damage, and rewards him for managing to stay in a fight and building durability by giving him tricky options in the later game the longer he's alive.

Another cool side effect is that it removes the frustrating E+Q+W burst+escape combo that current Wukong has in lane, as if you use the W to escape you lose out on a large part of your burst damage.

NIMBUS STRIKE Wukong dashes towards target enemy, dealing moderate physical damage to the primary target, light physical damage to nearby targets, and granting Wukong increased attack speed for 4 seconds. The duration of the attack speed buff is paused while Wukong is invisible. Scales on total AD. Cooldown: 8 seconds.

Designers Notes: Very minor changes here -- the ability was changed to a pure AoE (because the existing model was hard to recognize), with secondary damage decreased to avoid too much wave clear. The attack speed duration is also paused while Wukong is invisible to increase your options to play around with the kit. E into Q into W (sticking to the slowed target) into almost fully attack speed uptime with the pre-charged E and the upcoming E gives a pretty great opening if you can afford to give your target the 1.5 seconds of time to react.

CYCLONE Wukong lashes out in a circle with a radius of 200, dealing physical damage, knocking up targets struck, and marking them with Dizzy for 6 seconds. For the next 6 seconds he can cast this ability up to two additional times after a 1 second cooldown. Targets with Dizzy are immune to knock-ups from Cyclone, but take 50% increased physical damage. Scales on total AD. Cooldown: 120/105/90 seconds

Designer's Notes: A common complaint is that Wukong's ultimate locks him out from other abilities, so I've build this one to engage in the more spell-based gameplay this version has. You can't repeatedly knock up one target, but you CAN now do some trickier plays like W'ing into the front line, knocking them up, E-ing to the back line, knocking THEM up, and hitting them a second time for increased damage.


#Core Build Black Cleaver and Trinity Force make up this Wukong's core build, as he benefits greatly from CDR, deals physical damage quickly, and casts spells frequently. Deadman's Plate helps him ensure his Q lands and keeps targets around for his W's cook time, and Titanic Hydra or Ravenous Hydra increase his DPS and grant him a little more burst.

From there he can build AD or Tank as he needs for the situation.

In the jungle he can rely on Warrior for increased offensive capabilities, or rely on his strong stickiness to have high uptime on Cinderhulk.

40 Comments

FB Ospraey2/4/2018, 3:38:23 AM3 votes

i really like this, pretty fond of the wukong gaining more resistance the longer he is in combat. although i don't think his w would need a big change. maybe something like it can give an auto for his clone for that extra burst or split push power. maybe q with wukong.

personally id like to see wukong have more abilities that tie in with his shadow clone jutsu

Rester2/4/2018, 3:57:33 AM1 votes

Admittedly I am a bit concerned for his passive. It's a good idea but the "Nimble" part just kinda screams movement/attack speed for me instead of resistances.

Blue Moon Wolf2/4/2018, 8:51:51 AM1 votes

It looks nice but I think I can speak for a lot of mains that we do NOT want his decoy to be removed in favor of a pure stealth mechanic. It is the one thing I dread when Riot goes to update him. To me I'd rather have the decoy then the stealth mechanic as we have plenty of stealth mechanics in the game, but only 3 champs with decoys including Wukong. The decoy is pretty unique and with a bit of tweaking Riot could make it really stand out between the ones that are currently in the game.

I like that you stuck to the lore with the concept (I did something similar with mine, but took it in a direction that gave him multiple clones with less reliable stealth), but I honestly hope that the lore is just very early on and we will be seeing Wukong eventually gain the ability to make clones, not just have that concept scrapped for good. Decoys are part of what makes Wukong Wukong to me and that being removed would be like removing Garen's Spin or Shen's taunt.

As for the rest of the abilities, I like the passive. I had a very similar idea, but honestly I think "AA's into bonus armor and MR" will be the most likely thing for Riot to do with Wukong's passive when they go to update him as it's perfect for a Diver's kit and also good to see it work on large monsters, giving a bit more breathing room for those who like to play him in the jungle.

The Q was a bit hard for me to wrap my head around at first, as it sort of sounded like a weaker version of his ult to start with, but over all I think I like the ability. Its better then a basic empowered auto attack and seems to give Wukong some amount of poke to work with, which is something he's currently lacking.

The E makes sense. his Current E is pretty much like Mordes old Q in the sense that it targets nearly enemies at random (not a fan of abilities like that to be honest, they don't feel very intuitive) and with how it works currently, it may as well just do AOE damage. I will say it does make it very much like XinZhao's E, minus the slow, but its not like champs can't have similar abilities, especially when they are in the same class.

Ult is pretty much the same with added mechanics that would be refreshing to have. I would personally like to see less power in Wukong's Ult and see it spread to the rest of his kit and it looks like you did do that with the reduced range on his Ult. I felt like reduced range would be a good starting point when taking power out of his ult as it would make him more single target focused when ulting and able to use the knock up against remaining enemies as a defensive tool instead of flat CC.

Overall some really good ideas here, just keep in mind that the decoys are one of his defining features and it would really depressing to see that removed for a pure stealth mechanic.

Lios Ashenblade2/4/2018, 3:14:40 PM1 votes

Im not a fan of the the smokepoppy thing, it basically gives him an extra duskblade, maybe instead make it heal him for a scaling health %, so he drops the dot cloud, and moves to escape, or reinitiate, but comes back with that fat 15% heal, which would prompt people to build item 3065 potentially

And lets move the knock up to the q, thematically it makes more sense, since it slams the staff down on the vector, impact pops them up.

Im not sure what I would change the ult to, but that has a lot of potential, I think we should lean on his whimsical nature however, be kind of funny, to see him lob his staff like a ziggs ult, and have it do an aoe because its huge as fuck now, with a cc

Leonerdo2/4/2018, 8:06:41 PM1 votes

It seems like a cool kit. The ult especially is a definite improvement. And the ideas for the W sound really interesting, although I expect some of it would take several iterations of playtesting to get just right.

But I'm more worried about Wukong's identity and overall cohesion. A big part of his current issues is that his playstyle is kinda all over the place, with elements from the assassin, fighter/diver, and even vanguard class. It seems that you are pushing him more towards AoE and teamfight prowess (making him a better Jungler for sure) rather than single-target or dueling capabilities. But I'd rather hear that from you as an explicit goal.

As a maybe-problem, I would note that this kit looks quite similar to Xin Zhao's. The Q and E are quite similar to Xin's W and E (even the AS boost after using E), and both have AoE teamfight ults (not quite as similar). There a notable differences in their output, like Xin having more CC and single-target DPS from his Q, and Wukong obviously being better at escaping or tricking players with the Decoy. But I'm not sure it is enough to make Wukong a unique individual, deserving of his spot in the League roster, and pick-able over Xin regardless of balance. Maybe I'm being too weary, but I'd hate to revisit the ancient problem of "Why pick Fighter X, when Fighter Y does the same thing but better?"

YuGiHo2/4/2018, 9:37:54 PM1 votes

why does the passive give equal armor and magic resist when magic resist has more gold value than armor?

Teridax682/5/2018, 11:47:37 AM1 votes

Thoughts on this:

  • By and large, I feel these changes would make Wukong both more interesting to play and more interactive, without necessarily overloading him. This I think is a goal well-achieved.
  • With that said, it feels like each ability was individually changed to be more interactive (and more complex), without as much work going into making Wukong's kit flow together and synergize with itself as a whole. There is no particular relation between these abilities, a problem that already sort of exists in Wukong's current form to some extent, and I feel that if further work is to be done, it should aim to introduce more opportunities for him to combo his abilities off of each other.
  • In addition, I feel there's more that could be done to extract more of Wukong's lore and implement it in-game, both in League and from the original legend. Both his clones and elongating staff I think have more potential for cool gameplay besides just one decoy or one swipe-stab effect (or, in this case, swipe-smash), particularly since there are already plenty of effects in Wukong's original kit and the above version that display him using his clones or staff to apply certain effects. Just as an example, if his innate increased his staff range with every hit, which would then factor into his Q, E and ult range, that could already be an opportunity for thematic gameplay, as would putting his clone on a charge system and/or having it mimic Wukong's casts.
  • Not a super-important issue, but Nimble Fighter is already a title in use for Fizz's innate. Also, while Wukong already has a passive that offers him more resistances, I question whether resists are truly the most appropriate or interesting way of making Wukong more survivable. I might be in the minority on this, but I feel Wukong isn't actually a really tanky character, and instead relies on misdirection and trickery to survive incoming attacks, rather than outright durability. It is because of this as well that I would also personally lean more towards putting more emphasis on his clone as a means of evading damage, particularly since the above rework already aims to put more skill expression into Wukong via the mind games he can play.
  • While the above kit gives Wukong much more counterplay and interactivity, I'm still not entirely sure if it really gives him a niche. Wukong has some disparate elements that make him unique, namely his stealth, utility via armor reduction, and team initiation potential as a diver, but he's rarely shone on his own without being too strong altogether, in large part because those elements weren't tied together in a manner that gave him a totally unique contribution. Because of this, I would also look to refine his niche: do you want him to be a fighter who can initiate for his team? Do you want him to be a diver that can poke? Do you want him to be a more utility-focused character?

Overall, this looks like an excellent rework concept, particularly as it looks like it could significantly improve Wukong without turning him into a completely different champion, but I personally think there's still more that could be done to make him flow and stand out better. What's always disappointed me about Wukong is that the champion's obviously taken from Sun Wukong, a character with a tremendously rich set of skills, exploits, and unique personality traits that can all translate into amazing gameplay, yet has never lived up to that potential. He's not aged quite as badly as other bruisers, but he still relies on a lot of more generic power in order to be effective, when even his current playstyle already has a ton of potential for letting him do things no other fighter can do. Because of this, I think developing more on some of Wukong's themes, namely his clones and size-changing staff, could also allow him to satisfy your goals of making him more of a sustained fighter, while also enabling more cohesion and internal synergy to his kit.

GhaelWinds2/5/2018, 12:59:44 PM1 votes

Ok so I enjoy this rework more than a few others I've seen on the boards. A few notes though.

P: invisible power is something that riot has steadily been trying to get rid of and this passive reeks of it. Really the easiest way to fix this problem is if a visual effect was added for each stat but I feel that would get cluttered on his model. This is probably the only part of this kit that I would say needs to be fully looked at a bit. There's a reason why his current passive isn't very appreciated.

Q: Good ability, I just have a question. Would first half be instant and second half have a delay? Roughly what's the amount of time this ability takes to full go through.

W: Having to wait for the entire duration of being invisibility loses time in a combo as you wait to leave invisibility. If you tried for a faster combo then you risk losing the damage. I feel like if the tooltip says what you say but it has like a .1 sec forgiveness. That would fix that problem.

E: Good love it.

R: Maybe change the name from "dizzy" to something less child-like? Like he's a trickster but he isn't a baby monkey. Maybe even something like "Whiplashed" I don't really know WHAT to change it to but dizzy rubs me the wrong way.

THE RlVER KlNG2/5/2018, 10:38:51 PM1 votes

I think the W has too much going on. Since the Q is new and probably more powerful, you can probably shift the armor shred onto the slam hit to preserve flavor. The W granting a blink, plus the extra damage on auto just seems like a straight buff no matter how you cut it, even if you nerfed the Q or E damage. It's also cramming damage onto what should be a utility spell (not even mentioning the fact that his passive is super good in 1v1s now).

A blink + invis and leaving a damaging clone seems like enough.

ModKnightsKemplar2/5/2018, 11:11:14 PM1 votes

Pretty cool! I think you have some really neat ideas here; love the new Q and R, in particular.

I'm not convinced, wholesale, that his frustrating laning pattern would be eliminated by this, though. It looks to me like poking with E+Q+W is still viable, and when they're low enough, you would just use the bonus damage on W to secure the kill. As long as he has a gap closer and the decoy, I'm not sure how you avoid the assassin pattern.

I think I would prefer a Wukong that didn't have nimbus strike, as he would then have to choose whether to use decoy as offense or defense, but the two of them together seem like a problematic design for a diver to me. No other diver has a combination like that (that I can think of).

FlameHalbrdOkido2/9/2018, 12:58:35 AM1 votes

nice work