Fiddlesticks Rework Brainstorming

Hi there, everyone! Well, given that Fiddle is getting a rework next year, I thought I'd pitch in a few ideas of mine. I know that the people at Riot have probably already made up their minds as far as his kit is concerned, since they don't want to change him much, but I thought I would let everyone know how I envision a true scarecrow. I'm not gonna get into numerical and balancing details and stuff, cause I wouldn't be able to do it right, butlet's get into it!

First of all: The reworked Fiddle will be a melee champion, attacking using his scythe. I think he should still be a jungle/roaming champion.

• Passive: "A scarecrow's best friend" Periodically, a crow will spawn and stay in place in a random jungle camp, granting vision of the area to Fiddlesticks and his allies. If an enemy champion approaches the camp, the crow will be scared and leave, ending the effect, but will unleash its cry, notifying Fiddlesticks of the enemy's presence. I think this would make crows play a more active role in Fiddlesticks' kit other than simply being an attack particle. In any case, it's way more useful than his current passive, especially for a jungling/roaming Fiddlesticks, both as an offensive as a defensive measure.

• Q: "Reaping the crop" Fiddlesticks uses his scythe to cleave a cone-shaped area in front of him, deaing damage to enemies hit. Deals more damage if it hits a single target. If used from withing a bush, the ability will be empowered and will **silence **the targets for a short duration. The bush part will make more sense if you keep reading... It could be a nice R->E->Q->W combo)

• W: "A sip of blood" I tried to keep this ability on par with its old counterpart and also incorporate a part of his old R in it. Fiddlesticks roots himself and channels for a short duration. He cannot use other abilities, attack, or use/consume items during the ability. He can use summoner spells. While channeling, he deals moderate damage in an area around him and heals himself for a percentage of the damage dealt. When the duration ends, nearby enemies will be slowed for a while. If Fiddlesticks cancels the ability early, though, the slowing effect will not be applied. The more enemy champions that are near, the less he will heal from his W. (Gotta keep things a bit balanced!) This ability will help him teamfight, too (in tandem with his E), which is something Riot has stated they want in the new FIddle.

• E: "M for murder" Fiddlesticks summons a murder of crows in the specified location that fles towards him from their spawned location. The crows fly in a wide line, pushing enemies along with them while also damaging them. This could be used to bring enemies closer to Fiddlesticks so that he can use W on them (much like the old Q->W combo). The murder travels a fixed distance and doesn't necessarily stop when it meets Fiddlesticks, so if our beloved scarecrow aims the ability just behind him, the crows will pass through him, this time pushing enemies away from Fiddlesticks. This way, the ability would be used for defense too, but it would be harder to pull off.

• R: "Fear of the unknown" My favourite idea so far: Fiddlesticks aims at any bush on the map (or perhaps with a semi-global range). After channeling for some seconds, he teleports to this location and a loud, ominous sound plays across the map. However, the good part hasn't even begun yet. All bushes on the map will now have a fake scarecrow inside them (which will have a pose similar to old Fiddle's passive), except for the one where Fiddlesticks teleported to. Enemies will be able to see these scarecrows even from outside the bushes. The scarecrows last for about 5 seconds. Meanwhile, Fiddle will be in the exact same pose as the fake scarecrows in the bushes until he moves or attacks. As soon as he does that, the fake scarecrows will disappear and Fiddlesticks will get a boost to some of his stats (IDK which ones yet :P) for a little while, so that he is prepared for combat. Note that if Fiddlesticks moves or attacks, he will be briefly made visible to the enemy team. This will be the perfect ambush tool, and will also give Fiddlesticks map pressure. Besides that, I think it would fit with the "mysterious scary scarecrow-from-a-distance" creature thematic Riot outlines in their dev post. Opponents won't know which Fiddlesticks is the real one. He could be anywhere on the map, and they won't risk wasting their abilites on a potential fake... This means that most people would wait for the scarecrow effect to wear off, but by then it might be too late, because Fiddlesticks will already have ambushed them. Moreover, this stat boost would give Fiddle the advantage here, and in the very same article Riot has stated that this is pretty much how they want the new Fiddle to work: Ambush 'em, then outpower 'em.

I know that my proposed changes do differ from Riot's perspective in several areas, though. For example, Riot wants to keep Fiddle's E pretty much the same due to it being "iconic" and make the rest of his kit revolve around it, but I wanted to spice things up a bit. I also haven't taken into account how Fiddle could tie into the "mythical character that the urban legends speak of" thematic. In other words, I haven't really expanded into the following passage mentioned in the article:

"there would be nursery rhymes and storybook fables and old wive’s tales about a living scarecrow"

As you can see, his Q and W are also more effective against single targets, meaning that FIddle will be a nice ambush->quick 1v1 champ.

Thanks for taking the time to read this! I hope you enjoyed it! Let me know about ideas that you might have had! See ya and GLHF!

TL;DR: Too bad, read it now :P [katarina-love]