[Champion Concept] The Envoy of the Unseen
EDIT: I've added a "Play style" section to the bottom of this, to hopefully give a better idea of what I was going for in making such an odd champion. Give it a read!
EDIT 2: After receiving some feedback from some friends, I've reworked this design significantly. The primary change was to take a little less power out of her passive but decrease the stat limitations on her. Hopefully she should now be a bit less polarizing, since before she was countered extremely hard by mages but literally untouchable by most physical carries (e.g. Vayne). The changes should also make her give better feedback to her opponents, making her easier to understand for those playing against her. A few of the more important changes:
- The Envoy now becomes targetable upon taking any damage. This means that she can be autoattacked, but only after taking damage from an AoE or skillshot source. This replaces the "sparkles when X enemy champions are nearby" effect.
- To make up for this, her survivability stats have been increased, especially her magic resist which is now on par with that of a melee champion. In addition, she may now build magic resist and benefit from it in full, as well as 50% of the armor and health she builds. The remaining 50% of health and armor, as well as all AD stats, are still converted to AP at the previous ratios.
- Since the "sparkles when X enemy champions are nearby" effect is gone, the passive of Hide in Plain Sight has been reworked to slightly lower the duration she remains targetable after taking damage as the skill is ranked up.
- To make her a little bit more "elusive" even when she is revealed, the passive from Shimmering Wings is now always active, not just when she's out of combat.
- A mana cost has been added to Empath's Touch, since manaless healing is apparently a no-no in League.
- Bend Perception (W) has been completely reworked and is now a short-duration, relatively spammable ability that makes an ally champion untargetable and crowd-control-immune for a brief time while also disjointing projectiles. The option to cast on enemies has been removed.
- Lore has been changed to no longer reference the no-longer-existent League. Whoops!
- Added an unofficial musical theme, just for fun.
Keep the feedback coming, guys! I really appreciate it.
Hi folks!
I've never really done this kind of thing seriously before, but a friend of mine is involved in the CCOS and I had this idea floating in my head, so I figured I'd take a crack at making a champion for League, just for fun. This particular champion idea is highly unconventional and experimental, needless to say, so I'd greatly appreciate any constructive feedback on it! Also, I haven't actually played League in a fairly long time now, so it's quite possible that things are out of whack or that there are some additional interactions I need to clarify with this champion's unique mechanics. Let me know if you catch anything!
Also, I apologize for the length of this! I have a tendency to be extremely pedantic and give too much detail, so I felt like I had to specify a lot of detailed interactions. My hope is that the way the champion actually plays isn't too complicated, despite the appearance of such from this post, but feedback along that vein would also be really useful!
Thanks for taking a look, and hope you enjoy the concept!
Without further ado...
#The Envoy of the Unseen Role: Support ......................................................... ##Lore
Deep within the dwindling forests of Runeterra lives an ancient and reclusive race that truly has no name, possessing direct empathic communication and therefore having no need of language. While 'dragon' may be an appropriate moniker to describe the appearance of the small, winged silver-colored reptiles that comprise the race, they are quite far from the typical descriptions of the mythical beasts: small, graceful, lithe, and elusive. No sightings of these creatures have ever been recorded, for, while they lack fire-breathing or similar characteristically draconic traits, they instead possess empathic abilities that allow them to subtly influence others' perceptions such that, despite the fact that they are never truly invisible, they pass completely beneath the notice of other living things. Members of the species are deeply attuned to the emotions of those around them and tend to be ardent pacifists and isolationists. While they are incredibly averse to directly harming another living creature, they are still carnivores, which results in a rather curious cultural quirk: they will not hunt prey directly, but frequently assist other predators in taking down their prey so they can then subtly steal a share of the kill. To this end, they are capable of entering the predator's consciousness, melding their thoughts and enhancing all of their senses.
Despite their pacifistic tendencies, the gradual and unwitting encroachment upon their territory by civilization has finally made some of them realize that steps must be taken to protect their home. One particularly decisive member of the species believes that the only way to preserve the way of life of her people is through direct intervention. Like her race, she has no name, and so we shall merely refer to her as the Envoy. She has set out from her home, using her subtle powers to secretly influence the politics of Runeterra to further her race's interests. It's quite likely, however, that no one but her will ever know of her efforts...
##Appearance
[No image available] The Envoy is a small dragon whose small body is primarily comprised of a long and slim neck and tail, and wings. From head to tail, she is approximately 3 feet long, and her wingspan is about 4 feet long. She has slim arms and legs primarily suited for perching in trees, yet possessing small claws at the digits. Her eyes are a dull gray-blue color with round black pupils, and she has a rounded skull and snout, with small pointed teeth inside her mouth. Her entire body is silver in coloration, with the thin membranes of her wings taking on a faint pink coloration as a result of the blood flowing through them. She flies in graceful, flitting motions, sometimes gliding and sometimes flapping her wings in a motion that makes her body undulate. When turning, she banks sharply, and when standing still, she flutters in place.
##(Unofficial) Musical Theme
##Stats Health: 300 +44/level Health regen: 12 +1/level Mana: 390 +51/level Mana regen: 10.5 +0.6/level Attack damage: N/A (see below) Attack speed: N/A (see below) Armor: 14 +2/level Magic resist: 32.1 +1.25/level Movement speed: 335
##Passive: Hide in Plain Sight The Envoy is permanently ghosted and is invisible and untargetable to all other units, ally and enemy, and will not trigger traps through movement. A sparkle will periodically inform her allies of her position, but they cannot see or target her with effects. This invisibility cannot be circumvented through True Sight or effects that reveal champions, and is not broken upon ability use. Upon taking damage in this state, a sparkling effect reveals the Envoy's position for 3 seconds and she becomes targetable during that time. This passive also makes the Envoy immune to global effects that target champions.
However, the Envoy has extremely low health and armor, cannot deal damage by any means and does not have a basic attack. Furthermore, 50% of the health and armor granted by items, runes, and masteries and 100% of the attack damage, attack speed, and critical hit rate granted by those sources is instead converted to ability power at specified ratios. Instead of autoattacking, right-clicking on an allied target in melee range triggers Empath's Touch.
Empath's Touch Expends mana to grant the target a shield for 56 (+8/level) (+50% AP). This amount is increased by 1.25% per 1% missing health the target has. The shield lasts for 6 seconds and, as long as the shield remains unbroken, the target will be healed for the total shield amount over that duration. This ability has a cooldown that can be reduced by cooldown reduction. If the Envoy uses this on a minion, the shield is also applied to all nearby minions, and the duration of the shield and the maximum potential healing are doubled. Cannot self-target.
Armor conversion ratio: 1 armor = 1 AP Health conversion ratio: 7.5 health = 1 AP Attack damage conversion ratio: 1 AD = 1.75 AP Attack speed conversion ratio: 1% = 1.25 AP Critical hit rate conversion ratio: 1% = 2 AP Empath's Touch cast range: 175 Empath's Touch cooldown: 18 seconds Empath's Touch minion range: 600 Empath's Touch mana cost: 80
Notes:
- The Envoy's allies still have shared vision with her, and know her general position from the sparkling effect, but cannot target her with effects unless she has taken damage within the specified interval in which she is targetable after damage. She is also not displayed on any player's minimap other than her own.
- Other ways of tracking champions' movements also have no effect against the Envoy, such as Rek'Sai's Tremor Sense.
- When the Envoy is targetable, she appears to enemies and allies as a silver-colored point of light that trails a sparkling effect. Her health bar is still not visible. When she is targetable, she is also targetable for allies.
- The Envoy can still receive full bonuses to armor and health from ally champion effects. Technically, she can also get full effect from allied effects that boost AD stats too, but practically this doesn't matter.
- The conversion ratios were constructed based on the theoretical gold value of stats.
- Right-clicking an enemy unit as the Envoy issues a movement command that passes through them to the map.
- If the Envoy uses an active-use item that would deal damage, or if the passive of an item would deal damage to a unit, 0 damage is dealt instead. All other effects of the item still function as normal.
- The sparkle effect seen by allies triggers for allies approximately once every 3 seconds. Its position is randomly determined within a small radius of her actual position (~100 range). This fact is more or less strictly cosmetic, though it does mean that allies do not always have an exact idea of where she is.
- The Envoy can still be damaged normally by all area effect skills and will intercept skillshots as normal.
- The Envoy can still be damaged by traps with an area of effect if they are triggered by other means.
- "Global effects that target enemy champions" include things such as Karthus' ult and Twisted Fate's reveal on his ult.
- Some "hidden" effects of this passive that are just for fun: » Players who pick the Envoy will not be displayed in the pregame loading screen at all. » When enemies slay the Envoy, they will receive notification that they have slain an enemy, but no portrait will show up next to the text or in the kill feed. » The Envoy's emotes cause her to sparkle visibly to both teams for a short duration. » For the Envoy's joke, she says something about "trying out this 'attacking' thing." The animation takes a few seconds, but if she stands still for its duration, she lets out a small swipe in front of her with her claws that deals 1 damage to any champion hit. This is the only way she can deal damage.
##Q: Empathic Link On first cast, marks target ally or enemy champion. The mark lasts for up to 2.5 seconds, is visible only to the Envoy, and disappears if the target moves more than 1000 units away from the Envoy. If the mark disappears without a second cast, Empathic Link is put on a 0.5-second cooldown.
On second cast on a different champion, a link is formed between the marked champion and the second target. The link lasts for up to 6 seconds, ending early if either target dies. Additionally, if the linked champions are ever farther away than the maximum tether length and the tether has been active for 1.5 seconds or more, the link breaks. The Envoy cannot use the second cast on a champion if that champion's current distance from the marked champion exceeds the maximum tether length. The effects of the link depend on what kinds of champions were targeted with it.
Ally to Ally: The two champions share their pain, reducing the total damage they both take and causing a portion of damage dealt to any one linked champion to sometimes be partially redirected to the other. Up to 70% of the damage can be redirected, but the actual amount redirected for any given instance of damage depends on a set of rules (see below). Redirected damage can never be lethal. Additionally, while this effect is active, both linked champions enjoy the higher of the two champions' armor values, and the same is true of magic resist.
Ally to Enemy: The enemy champion experiences a profound empathy for their linked target, causing a percentage of the damage they deal to the linked champion to be prevented and dealt to themselves instead. This self-damage is still credited as being dealt by them. Additionally, if the allied champion has less armor than the enemy champion, the enemy champion's armor is set to equal the allied champion's. The same is true for magic resist.
Enemy to Enemy: The two champions are compelled to feel each other's pain, causing a percentage of damage dealt to one to be duplicated and dealt to the other as well, with this duplicated damage being credited to the same source as the original damage. Additionally, for as long as the link persists, both champions have the lower of the two champions' armor values, and the same is true for magic resist.
Mana cost: 90/105/120/135/150 (paid upon second cast only) Cast range: 700 (for both casts) Maximum tether length: 700 Ally to Ally total damage reduction: 10%/12%/14%/16%/18% (+1% per 100 AP) Ally to Enemy damage redirection: 15%/20%/25%/30%/35% (+1% per 100 AP) Enemy to Enemy damage duplication: 15%/20%/25%/30%/35% (+1% per 70 AP)
Notes:
- The link is visible to all allies and enemies as a tether between the two affected champions unless one of the targets is invisible to them. In that case, a visual effect on the visible target still makes it apparent to enemies and allies that this ability has been used.
- Different visual effects are used to denote different link types to both allies and enemies. Ally to Ally tethers have a green color, while Enemy to Enemy tethers are red. Ally to enemy tethers are red on the enemy's side and green at the ally's side, with green and red particle effects seeming to "flow" between the two.
- While the Envoy has a mark on a champion, a faint circular aura that only the Envoy's player can see emanates from them as long as the Envoy has vision of the marked champion. This aura has a radius equal to the maximum tether length listed above, allowing the Envoy's player to see whether other targets are close enough to be tethered to the marked champion.
- All damage redirected or duplicated by all forms of this ability is calculated directly based on the actual (post-mitigation) damage taken by the original target of the damage. In other words, the damage on the secondary target bypasses armor, magic resistance, and other mitigation effects of the secondary target, but it still is counted as the same type of damage (e.g. physical/magical/true) as the original damage, and is credited to the same source. Redirected/duplicated damage does not bypass shields on the secondary target, however.
- This ability only redirects or duplicates damage that is actually dealt to the health of a champion. For example, if the main target of an instance of damage has a shield that prevents all the damage or has any other effect that prevents it entirely (e.g. Tryndamere's Undying Rage at the minimum HP threshold), no damage is redirected or duplicated to the linked champion.
- Redirected and duplicated damage being "credited" to the original source means that it counts for all purposes as having been dealt by that source. This means, for example, that lifesteal and spell vamp apply to it among other things. However, no other secondary effects of damage from attacks or spells, such as on-hit status effects and spell effects, occur on the secondary target.
- The armor and magic resist effects of these abilities update dynamically if the armor and/or magic resist values of the champions change.
- Ally to Ally redirection rules are as follows. These rules are designed such that the redirection should be strictly beneficial in most cases. All of the following are subject to the Ally to Ally redirection rule that no more than 70% of damage may be redirected from the original target of the damage to the linked champion. » First and foremost, the redirection algorithm prioritizes keeping the two champions' HP values as close to equal as possible. » Going off of the above, if two champions have roughly equal HP, the algorithm will select an amount of damage to redirect, within the redirection limit, that keeps the two heroes' HP values as close as possible after the damage is dealt. » By the same token, if one linked champion has significantly higher HP than another when damage is dealt, the algorithm will redirect (or not redirect) in such a way that maximizes the damage the higher-HP champion takes. » The algorithm will never redirect damage in such a way that the secondary target receives lethal damage. » If the algorithm is unable to redirect enough damage to save the primary target of an instance of damage from death, or if the amount of redirection necessary to save the primary target would kill the secondary target, no redirection occurs. (In other words, the primary target dies, the secondary target receives no damage, and the tether ends.)
- Ally to Ally damage reduction still occurs for as long as the link persists, even for instances of damage that are not redirected at all.
- If the Enemy to Enemy tether duplicated damage kills a target, the original source of the damage receives kill credit. If an Ally to Enemy tether causes the enemy to kill themselves with their damage, this is treated identically to a death by a turret, minion or monster. (In theory, this means that an Ally to Enemy tether could, in exceedingly rare cirumstances, cause an kill to be credited to the Envoy if none of her allies dealt damage to the target in the last 13 seconds.)
- The tether from this ability is still visible even if one or both of the targets are invisible. As such, it is very risky for the Envoy to use herself as a linked target, as it allows enemies to track her position.
##W: Bend Perception Passive: The time after taking damage where the Envoy is targetable by enemies is decreased to 2.75/2.5/2.25/2/1.75 seconds.
Covers target ally champion in a silvery shroud, making them untargetable by all enemies, immune to all crowd control, and invisible to all minions and monsters for a short duration, while also granting them bonus movement speed that decays over the duration. Disjoints all in-flight projectiles targeting the ally on cast. Can't self-target.
Mana cost: 40 Cast range: 700 Duration: 1 second (+0.2% AP) Initial movement speed: 24%/30%/36%/42%/48% Cooldown: 14/12/10/8/6 seconds
Notes:
- The movement speed decays completely (to 0%) over the duration.
- Shrouded champions look like blurry, indistinct silver clouds to enemies.
- The target is not made targetable by True Sight or reveal effects.
- Removes all crowd control from the target on cast.
- Turret shots are also disjointed upon use of this ability.
##E: Shimmering Wings Passive: The Envoy permanently gains bonus movement speed. When she is moving towards a champion within 1000 range that has 40% health or less, this bonus is doubled.
Active: The Envoy flaps her wings, producing a slow-moving wisp that travels indefinitely in the target direction, gliding over walls and terrain. The wisp is normally camouflaged and invisible to champions further than 300 range away from it, but can be seen without restriction by units that possess True Sight. The wisps have 1 HP and can only be damaged by champion or turret basic attacks. Reactivating this ability targeting a wisp will teleport the Envoy to that wisp's location after a 2-second delay, consuming the wisp. Taking any damage during this period will cancel the teleport and place the skill on full cooldown. Teleporting to a wisp costs no mana, but still puts the skill on cooldown. If the Envoy teleports to a wisp that has traveled a certain distance, she regains mana based on the distance the wisp traveled.
The Envoy can have multiple wisps active depending on the rank of this skill, but creating a wisp costs more mana the more wisps are currently active. Creating a new wisp while at the limit will destroy the oldest current wisp on the battlefield before the cast, but won't cost extra mana for the destroyed wisp.
Passive bonus movement speed: 12%/15%/18%/21%/24% (+1% per 100 AP) Mana cost: 150 + 75 per deployed wisp Maximum wisps: 1/1/2/2/3 Cooldown: 4 seconds Wisp movement speed: 150 Wisp distance traveled to recover mana: 5000 Mana recovered: 100 + 20 for every 500 units traveled past the minimum distance
Notes:
- Wisps will disappear automatically once they reach the edge of the playable area.
- If the wisp is over terrain when the Envoy teleports to it, she will be dropped as close as she can be to its location.
- To prevent misclicks, targeting this ability close to an existing wisp (within ~250 range of it or so) will interpret the command as teleporting to that wisp. They can also be targeted via the minimap.
- Ally champions can see wisps from any distance and can see them on the minimap as well.
- Minions and monsters will not aggro onto wisps at all.
- The Envoy may still move as normal during the 2-second delay prior to teleporting to a wisp.
- A wisp that will cause the Envoy to recover mana upon teleportation shines noticeably brighter than one that has not yet traveled far enough.
- Wisps will not disappear if the Envoy dies.
- Wisps cannot be teleported to with the summoner spell Teleport.
##R: Hunt as One The Envoy channels to link her mind with an ally champion, granting them combat bonuses, all passive effects of her items, and a percentage of the stat bonuses of her items, ignoring the stat conversion effect of her passive. Any bonus health granted by the items is granted as a shield that lasts for as long as Hunt as One is active. The Envoy herself is immobile while Hunt as One is active. While Hunt as One active, the Envoy's camera follows the target and she can cast all of her abilities from the target's position rather than her own. She may also use actives of items from the position of the ally champion, and if she does so, it is treated as though the target champion used them, with damage credited to that champion and not her. This effect can be canceled early by recasting this ability. The effect also ends if the champion moves too far away from the Envoy, or after a specified duration.
While Hunt as One is active, a silvery tether is visible to enemies between her and the target, and if an enemy champion has vision of her location, they will see the periodic sparkles near her location that they would normally see if there were enough enemy champions near her. If she takes any instance of damage that exceeds 20% of her health during this time, Hunt as One immediately ends and the Envoy is stunned for 1.5 seconds.
Mana cost: 200 Cast range: 900 Maximum duration: 20/25/30 seconds Maximum link range: 4500 Cooldown: 50 seconds (begins when the ability ends) Bonus attack damage: 5/10/15 Bonus AP: 10/20/30 Bonus attack speed: 5%/10%/15% Bonus armor: 10/20/30 Bonus magic resist: 10/20/30 Bonus movement speed: 15/30/45 Item bonuses granted: 50%/65%/80%
Notes:
- All passive and active item effects are granted to the target, but this cannot cause the target to break unique passive rules. If there is a conflict between two forms of a unique passive, the target's version of the passive prevails. For example, the Envoy's boots have no effect on the target unless the target does not have a pair of boots themselves.
- The affected ally will see a brief, mostly transparent glimpse of the Envoy's eyes upon cast of this ability, and it also has a particle effect to inform them of the link that enemies can see as well. If the ally is about to break the range of the ability, the tether will visibly indicate this (via a "stretching" effect) to the player the ability is being used on.
- The bonded champion does not receive any percentage of the Envoy's base stats or any rune or mastery bonuses, only the bonuses from her items.
- Item actives will be treated as having been used by the target champion rather than the Envoy. This means they will do damage as normal, and if they would normally have an effect on the Envoy if used, they will instead have that effect on the bonded champion.
- The Envoy can activate Empath's Touch on the target during this ability by right-clicking on them. If other champions are within melee range, she can also use it on them.
- The 20% damage requirement is so that this ability doesn't get hard-countered by things such as Immolate effects. With her low health and inability to obtain health from items, 20% should be easy to achieve via non-DoT effects.
- If the tether is broken by an enemy dealing damage to the Envoy, both teams will hear a distinct sound conveying this.
- The Envoy cannot teleport to a wisp through Shimmering Wings while Hunt as One is active. She may, however, send out wisps from the target's location.
##Play style
The Envoy is intended to be a highly mobile roaming support who contributes to battles in subtle yet powerful ways. Her wisps, passive out-of-combat movement speed, and invisibility encourage her to scout out enemy champions in the early game. Doing so, however, is always risky, since taking damage allows her to be seen and targeted, and she will be highly squishy regardless of what is built on her. Additionally, like any support, she can do very little on her own, so she fits best on teams that like to make aggressive plays that require a lot of vision into enemy territory. Her mana costs are intentionally high to encourage her to frequently make use of wisps to either Recall and then get back to lane quickly or use them to abruptly switch lanes, helping out multiple allies. In early-game ganks, the Envoy is intended to work best when the enemy is not aware of her presence in a fight until it's too late, and her wisps allow her to, with skilled timing on the part of her and her team, participate in a lot of ganks, even across the map.
Her Q has multiple options and the optimal one depends very much on the situation as well as each team composition. Ally-to-ally links are great if your team is struggling to peel enemies off of the team's damage dealers, and it can even allow tanks to soak up the damage a squishy teammate would take while still doing their thing. Ally-to-enemy tethers are ideal in situations where an assassin or a bruiser is deep behind enemy lines trying to burst down a squishy teammate, or in general if the enemy team's com revolves around one champion doing most of the damage. An enemy-to-enemy tether is an offensive option that potentially allows your team to do massive amounts of damage to an enemy tank if the Envoy can link the tank to a squishier enemy. While this link can be very rewarding, it is worth keeping in mind that this version of the link is the easiest type for enemies to break by moving the two linked champions apart from each other.
Her W is a very timing-sensitive ability that can mitigate a decent amount of damage if timed well, while also helping an ally either stick to an enemy or disengage. In the early game, it has quite a bit of use since it can disjoint a turret shot, aiding allied tower dives. It also passively reduces the time the Envoy becomes targetable after taking damage, aiding her own survival. At low ranks, this ability has a relatively long cooldown, but at max rank it becomes very spammable, allowing it to be used several times in one fight, especially with cooldown reduction.
Her E is a unique mobility tool that, with some early points, can allow her to influence multiple lanes in the laning phase and keep her health and mana up without losing much downtime. With one wisp, she can send a wisp flying backward in her lane and then recall, teleporting to the wisp after her health and mana have recovered and she has purchased the items she needs. Once she has enough points in the skill to have two wisps, she can send one flying towards another lane and then, once the first one begins to approach the other lane, she can send a wisp backward in her own lane, teleport to the other lane to assist in a gank, then teleport back to her own lane, all in relatively quick succession. Since the wisps move very slowly, she won't lose much time doing this. Once she has three wisps, clever use of them can allow her to be wherever she needs to be at any given time, provided her player plans ahead and sends wisps to places she needs to be beforehand. However, enemies can detect and destroy wisps if they're close enough, so smart enemies can counterplay against this feature.
Her ultimate ability is designed to allow her to contribute to teamfights despite the many limitations imposed on her by her passive. Her ability to impart item effects on allies is unique and allows a team to coordinate a strategy based on a single ally effectively having "more items" than they would otherwise. Her AP conversion passive allows any item to be at least somewhat useful to her while her ult is not active, while allowing her to basically "build" what her ult will do. This presents a lot of interesting options, such as building increased offensive items for your tank, increased defensive items to protect a key carry, or going crazy and giving your Rammus even more armor. Her ultimate also allows her to use her spells even in the midst of a fight, which otherwise would probably be fairly risky especially against an enemy team with a lot of AoE. However, her ult also gives probably the best clue to her location, so opportunistic assassins can easily pick her off while she's completely defenseless in the back - or at least put a quick stop to her ultimate and force her to leave a fight.
All in all, the Envoy is certainly a very unique support that would work best in the hands of a player who enjoys being subtle and clever in the way they influence the battlefield. She would likely fit best on very coordinated teams that can plan around her limitations and make the best use of her unique capabilities.
