Hey again, Concepts & Creations!

I've been doing these as personal challenges to rework existing champions, and a friend told me to take a look at Vi, a character who is definitely perfectly functional and fairly thematic. That's a tricky one to approach, so I couldn't help but be intrigued.

The end goal here is to add a bit more gameplay to Vi's design, which is very singularly focused on diving one target, while retaining her fantasy of a powerful, mobile diver and as much of her kit's flow as possible. A successful rework will create new opportunities for skill expression while still feeling like Vi.

As a secondary goal, I'd like to discourage an assassin playstyle. While I understand that leaping on one target and outright murdering them can be fun, I'd rather encourage Vi to think about how and where she uses her abilities instead of combo-ing R+E+E into up-front burst on one poor individual.

As a tertiary goal, Vi's always had some trouble balancing her laning and jungling roles. By injecting a bit more AoE and some more reliable laning tools (such as an on-demand shield) into her kit, as well as some "on champion or large monster" abilities where one of the two conditions could be removed as necessary, I hope to give her some more levers that could be utilized to balance the two roles a little better.

Let me know your thoughts -- this is, as always, a somewhat rough draft, and damage numbers are not included, as those would be highly subject to change. What I'd like to know is if the changes accomplish the following:

• Still feel like Vi.
• Increase your excitement to play as Vi.
• Feel like they offer a more interesting and engaging playstyle.
• Feel like they still offer counterplay.
• Give you a better reason to pick Vi.
• Give Vi a more unique identity.
• Make you more interested in having a Vi on your team.
• Feel fair.

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Brutal Momentum [Passive]

Vi's basic attacks apply Heavy Blows, stacking up to 3 times. At 3 stacks of Heavy Blows, Vi consumes the stacks to deal bonus physical damage, and gains bonus attack speed for 4 seconds. Each time Heavy Blows hits a target, subsequent Heavy Blows within the next 6 seconds deal bonus damage.

When Vi is channeling or dashing with Vault Breaker, Heavy Blow's duration does not tick down.

Design Notes: Vi's old W, minus the armor shred, ends up here, opening up an ability slot on her kit. It gives her strong sustained dueling power, opening up some alternative Vi builds by its synergy with attack speed and durability as well as attack damage.

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Vault Breaker [Q]

First Cast: Vi channels for up to 4 seconds, increasing Vault Breaker's range and speed over 1.25 seconds. Vi can move while channeling, but is pacified and slowed by 15%.

Second Cast: Vi dashes in the target direction, dealing physical damage to enemies she passes through. If she collides with an enemy champion, she knocks them back a short distance and applies a stack of Heavy Blows. If she passes through terrain she bursts explosively out of the other side, dealing physical damage to all targets in a cone on the opposite side of the terrain from her starting location.

Design Notes: This ability fits Vi's character fantasy nearly perfectly, so I didn't want to change it up too much. I'm not a fan of the increasing damage though, as it encourages charging it up in combat, which comes at the expense of Vi's auto-attack focus, so I standardized the damage so what you're really worried about is the range. I've also added a terrain-bursting feature, that both emphasizes Vi's raw power, gives her some jungle strength (without impacting her laning strength significantly), and gives her and her team a cool reward for vision-enabled engages through walls.

#Knuckle Down Active: Vi leaps a very short distance and brings her gauntlets crashing down in a small area of effect, dealing physical damage to targets she strikes and gaining a shield equal to 10% of her maximum health. If Knuckle Down strikes an enemy champion or large monster, the shield is increased to 15% of her maximum health.

Attacks against enemy champions and large monsters reduce the cooldown of Knuckle Down

Design Notes: Vi's a mobile and powerful brawler, which I tried to double down on with a more active shield. The range of this would be extremely short, so it's more akin to an area targeted Illaoi W than a medium range dash, but it gives Vi some duck-and-weave potential, emphasizes her powerful attacks and brawling style, and gives you another ability to think about -- do you dodge, use it to gap-close, or wait to try to maximize your shield?

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#Excessive Force [E] Passive: Excessive Force stores charges, to a maximum of 2.

Active: Vi charges up her hextech gauntlets, causing her next basic attack within 5 seconds gains 50 bonus range and deals physical damage to all enemies in a cone in front of her. Her primary target's armor is reduced by 20% for 4 seconds. Further applications of Excessive Force refresh the duration, but do not stack.

Excessive Force resets Vi’s basic attack timer.

Design Notes: Moving the armor shred here encourages Vi to think a bit more about when and where she uses this ability, rather than simply chaining it into itself for up-front burst damage. I considered lowering the amount of shred due to the ease of application, but given that auto+E+E was so nearly automatic in the previous iteration I left it at the old value for the time being. The swap also makes her have to think about wave-clearing, as doing so opens up a potential weakness, as she'll lose her shred if she's out of charges when she's engaged upon.

Assault and Battery [R]

Active: Vi dashes to the target enemy champion, dealing physical damge and knocking them up for 1 second. Enemies along the way are knocked aside, and take reduced damage. While Vi has a target airborne she may recast the ability within a 350 radius circle. When the knock-up duration is complete, Vi crashes to earth at the selected point (or at her current location if no second cast occurred), taking her target with her. Enemies around the impact point take physical damage and are stunned for 0.5 seconds.

Design Notes: A thematically great ability, this adjustment throws a little bit more skill behind the effect, and fits well with the two-fold name by making the effect two casts. It gives Vi a more complex diver role, as she can, in theory, snare a target and move them to a vulnerable position or crash them into her team, adding some decision making about who to target for optimal use rather than making the ability "dive the carry" every time.