Lyras, War Mage [A Novel Approach to Re-defining What Constitutes a "Mage"]
Hello League! I’m Cardi and I’ve been designing champion kits in the past, and worked on several champion rework concepts as well. The reason I do this is for primarily for fun – it’s a blast to exercise creativity in meaningful ways related to the game that you play. If you’d like to learn more about my past work, you can check out some of my reworks and/or designs by clicking some of the links below. Otherwise, less about me; let us stagnate no further and get straight into the design!
This time, in search of gameplay that feels legitimately and radically different from anything else that exists in League today, I designed a new champion with the specific purpose of introducing a mage champion that would feel entirely different on a very basic, fundamental level. She's not your typical mage champion that casts spells periodically and rotates the ever-mundane wheel of monotony: aim skillshot, wait for cooldowns, and repeat – she’s a mage who can only and actively generate her resource bar by attacking, reminiscent of certain games I’ve encountered in the past (fond shout out to Grand Chase, which to my utter disappointment is no longer with us). This allows her to break several rules that are usually present in League of Legends.
For example, firstly her abilities are all at level one when she starts the game. Yes, including her ultimate. Second, she can literally revive herself almost anywhere on the map with sufficient preparation (why, hello there Summoner Revive it's nice to see you again). Before I even get to third, you’re probably going to wonder where I’m going with this kit that sounds utterly insane. Frankly, I'm fine with that being your impression, because she actually is insane on a whole new level. Everything about her screams insanity with an uncomfortably healthy dose of terrifying. Her domineering personality coupled with this insanity on the battlefield makes even champions like Kled feel comparatively tame, and her gameplay reflects this perfectly. When I’m talking about this champion, I’m talking big. Like Really Big. When played to full potential, players playing against her should feel like they’re fighting some kind of diabolically unreal boss monster from another dimension big. She can refuse to obey the other rules of League of Legends, like properly last-hitting minions for gold, if she so desires simply because she has other objectives she can take. Like strategically killing the enemy jungler at level one with a support jungle Blitzcrank on her team. That's the big I'm talking about. In short, when she’s behind her opponents should feel a ton of pressure playing against her. When she’s ahead, stepping into a team fight should feel like you’re playing against doom bots, only with four extra non-doom bot champions on her team to boot. Step into a game against her, and it’s no longer just a fight.
It's war.
Lyras, War Mage
Deathly Scepter (Passive): Lyras uses mana, but cannot not gain bonus mana or cooldown reduction. Instead, scoring a kill grants a little mana regeneration for five seconds. Champion kills grant this bonus for twenty seconds, while ability power increases the regeneration amount. She starts the game with no mana and loses all of her mana upon death.
Lyras’s resource bar is still mana, but it functions in an entirely novel way. Instead of starting the game with all of her maximum mana, she starts with none of it and earns it through battle. Kills grant her small bits of regeneration over time, while her Q: Blue Flame will restore additional mana when she hits any target with it. Her ultimate ability, R: Rain of Death can only be used when she expends her entire mana bar, but is quite possibly the best AoD ability in the game.
Blue Flame / Ghastly Soldiers / Kiss of Death (Q): Lyras toggles between her three Q abilities by using her E ability, Transform. Transform is a one second stationary channel that costs some of Lyras’ current mana. When she levels up her Q ability, only the ability that is currently active is leveled up.
Blue Flame: Lyras loses her ability to basic attack when toggled onto this ability. This ability is a thin skillshot projectile that costs some of her current mana to cast, but refunds its mana cost plus an additional amount if it hits a target. When it hits champions, the amount of mana restored increases dramatically.
Ghastly Soldiers: Costs a low amount of mana to cast. Lyras reanimates the bodies of dead soldiers as grisly monsters around her, which then aggro and prioritize the nearest enemy champions with added movement speed when first summoned. They have limited aggro range and stop chasing if a champion exits Lyras’s vision, but last indefinitely until killed. Enemy champions deal double damage to these monsters. Up to ten soldiers can be active at once.
Kiss of Death: Costs a moderate amount of mana to cast. Upon activation, Lyras’s next three basic attacks deal solely magic damage based on her ability power and have a special three-hit animation. The last hit, if successful, forces the target into the underworld for one second, where it can’t attack, cast spells, be damaged, be targeted, or take action for the duration of the effect (similar to Zhonya’s but with a different animation, probably something like Kalista’s binding animation). Upon returning from the underworld, the target explodes, slowing itself and enemies directly next to it for half a second.
Lyras' Q is three abilities at once, and she can switch between them by channeling for one second each time with her E ability, Transform. Her first ability, Blue Flame, is her bread and butter resource generation ability. Without it, she has to kill something with her melee basic attacks in order to activate her passive for a measly five seconds. This would be fine in any other game, but in League this puts her at an overwhelming disadvantage versus her opponents because she lacks the resources to cast her other abilities and has to get into melee range to last hit something in order to generate her mana otherwise. Her second ability, Ghastly Soldiers, is something like Yorick's old ghouls, but less annoying and more so frightening when she amasses her army. They have less aggro range, but last forever until they're killed. That means she can hide her soldiers in the fog of war and stack a bunch of them over time in a specific area for a massive ambush. Her final Q ability, Kiss of Death, lets her put any target (excluding Baron and Dragon) into a form of stasis for a second if she can proc that almighty familiar three hit mark (Hmm... I wonder where I've seen this before).
Domination (W): Lyras gains double gold and experience for…
- Shutting down enemy champions (scoring the killing blow on enemy champions with kill streaks)
- Stealing an enemy jungle camp or slaying a boss-monster neutral objective by herself (Baron or Dragon)
- Destroying enemy structures by herself
However, she does not share the gold and experience with her team when she shuts down an enemy champion or when she dominates a neutral objective. She also receives half gold from enemy minion kills and monster kills in her team’s side of the jungle, but has greater natural gold generation. She receives no gold from assists. This ability cannot be leveled up past level one.
Domination is what makes Lyras' gameplay so utterly different from that of her peers. Instead of being entirely focused on last-hitting enemy minions to maximize profits, she has several other more pressing matters at hand which she can so choose to address. Namely, her opponents seem to be earning gold from their side of the fog of war. That just can't be allowed without Lyras' permission once she enters the rift. How rude of her enemies to disrespect her authority. Evidently, she must flex her alpha muscles and assert her dominance over her competitors by squishing them to a pulp. No gold for the enemy jungler today. And who needs help with Baron anyway? I'll just summon an army of soldiers and whittle the Baron down myself while they tank. Bonus points for ulting the Baron pit area before starting to prevent others from interfering.
Transform / Reanimation (E): When Lyras is alive, this ability is transform. When Lyras is dead, this ability becomes reanimation.
Transform: Toggles between Lyras’s three Q abilities with a one second channel.
Reanimation: Lyras can cast this ability when she’s dead to revive at the location of any of her summoned ghastly soldiers. The revival takes a few seconds of channel time to complete. If no soldiers are alive or if she self-casts this ability without targeting a soldier, this ability will instead restore the entirety of her mana bar when she revives.
Transform is how she'll be toggling between her different Q abilities when she's alive. When she's dead, however, things are just a tad bit different. The ability turns into Reanimation, which she can cast directly upon any summoned Ghastly Soldier to begin her attempt to revive herself. If her enemies can spot and destroy that soldier before she finishes, the ability's long cooldown will be wasted. She can also choose to fill up her mana bar with this ability instead of reviving herself so that can she can cast her ultimate right away after reviving through normal means. Absolutely terrifying.
Rain of Death (R): Lyras reveals herself to the entire map and channels for five seconds (draining her entire mana bar over the process) before summoning a thunderstorm of death upon her portion of the map, causing all enemies within the radius of the effect to be constantly bombarded by dark projectiles that deal damage entirely based on missing health, which in turn is increased by Lyras’ ability power, for ten seconds. Can only be cast when mana bar is full.
*Rain of Death - little projectiles rain down on random locations extremely near all enemy champions in high volume within the ultimate's area of effect. The amount of damage dealt scales directly with the struck target's missing health - 0% damage at max health, 100% damage at 0 health. Otherwise, the damage is based off her ability power. *
When I said boss monster, i meant it. Casting this ability means your opponents will have no choice but to retreat from an entire portion of the map for a solid ten seconds or risking losing a fight should they take just one misstep into the path of a projectile when they're low on health. It's a high impact area of denial that fulfills a player's dream of casting a meteor shower of death upon opponents.
Summary
*Lyras is a champion who defies expectations both in game and in the game's lore. Her strength stems partially from her insanity, which led her to the dark arts of conjuring the undead in the first place, and partially from the obstacles she's overcome in the many years she's spent as a general of war and her personality fits this theme to a T. Fierce and unnerving, she mirrors her personality in game by being no simple champion with a mediocre target blink or line skillshot slapped onto some fancy animations. No, not at all. She's symbolic of all the darkness of war itself, going so far as to indiscriminately (in lore) rain death upon the battlefield to allies and enemies alike. In game, her kit reflects this strength and deviance from the norm and draws upon some inspiration from other games where resources aren't always available immediately like they are in League of Legends. She has to work to cast her spells, but has powerful spells to boot when she does succeed (her ultimate for example, is available at level one but is gated by her mana bar, which she has to fill up in order to cast the ability in the first place). *
TL;DR -Fierce, War Mage champion who breaks the rules of both war (in lore) and League of Legends (in game) -Q is three abilities in one (rule breaker). -W is a passive that lets her gain gold from other means besides last hitting (rule breaker). -E toggles between her Q abilities, but is a different ability when she's dead. -R is a rain of death, literally.
. It really should do damage if it is meant to do damage. like pick a lane and a cloud of slowing death heads down it and follows it
