Sketch - The Arcane Artist

Sketch - The Arcane Artist Or perhaps "The Artisan Pardigm"

So just a few notes before you start reading. -This is my first post -I'm relatively new to LOL (Summoner level 13) so... ---Sorry if I accidentally copied another champion ---Also I didn't make numbers because I don't know what's balanced, and numbers are everything ---I had a limited amount of champions, etc. to use in the gameplay examples, so I used some I knew well, that I had, that I've played against, and/or that were in the free champion rotation -I wanted to get this idea out as soon as possible so... ---The idea isn't quite polished yet, and the lore is... bad ---Champion name, ability names, etc. are not final ---I ended up taking so long to type this post that it's somewhat completed, but I still rushed to get it out before it was all done (which would take a long time) ---I didn't edit this post, so there's probably some spelling/grammer errors laying around and maybe some other problems too -I'm not even sure if my idea is possible in their game engine -Gimmicky and unique champions are usually the more loved ones, and this has TWO major gimmicks that make it very unique -Read through the whole post before judging, because if you don't it won't make sense -It's a very versatile and adaptable champion, able to play multiple roles if built correctly, but always with some weakness -I've divided this up into 3 sections, ---Mechanics: how the game engine sees it, explanations of how it functionally works ---Gameplay: how it would function in game, and some ways to play it ---Skins: what everything looks like to the player, and how it can be customized ---Comments: anything else I have to say

Okay, let's start.

Lore Note: if you're good at writing stories, please write a better one. When she was a child, all she obsessed over was art. Not magic or anything else that the others thought were truly useful, just plain drawing. She had a special tool, a gift from a visiting wizard. A sketchbook. Any page with drawings on it torn out of the book would transform into what was drawn. It also had an endless supply of pages. She found out about that the hard way. At one point, she drew a family picture. Being the young naive child that she was, she quickly removed the page and started on another drawing. The stick figures immediately came to life and ruthlessly assualted her. That was a bad experience, and one that she got locked in her room for. But as she kept drawing, she learned more about the magical sketchbook. The more detailed the drawings were, the better the results. She was always drawing happy things. But there were other drawings that she kept to herself, and told nobody about. After all, she was scared of the possibilities of anything dangerous. In her teenage years, when she woke up one day to screams, and found out everybody was gone, even her own parents, she peeked out the window and saw why. A large dark cloud, centered on a shadowy figure, who had already obliterated half the village. At first, she just hid in her room, shivering in fear. But after checking again and finding the evil thing torturing one of her friends, she knew what had to be done. She couldn't tolerate the tormented cries any longer. She scrambled for the sketchbook, flipping through the pages until she found it. The drawing that if removed, would become a weapon with enormous power. Made completely of a material from her own imagination, Arcanite. It was a perfect material, being many times stronger than the strongest non-magic material, acting as a supercapacitor for mana, able to be enchanted multiple times and transfer enchantments, able to store and cast spells, and best of all, manipulatable by its owner without the use of magic. After all, Sketch didn't possess any magical powers. She was an ordinary child with a magical tool. Sketch pulled it out without hesitation. She stepped out onto the gravel street to face the creature. She was shaking from fear. But from somewhere, something undescribable came, giving her the strength and courage to retaliate. She dashed through the street and flew at it. One hit, and it was dead. She waited, and called out for help, but the only person left seemed to be her friend. Their life was fading quickly, and they were already too far away to respond. After walking around the neighbourhood for a few minutes, she found another body. A corpse. Not any corpse, but an empty husk. She realized why everyone was gone. Everyone had been devoured by the wraith. Sketch still had many drawings of her friends and other people, but after many pages torn out and many people revived, she realized she just couldn't revive a village. Those who had came back were rather lifeless. They had no emotion, or will to do anything. The empty imitations slowly died off on their own. Sketch locked herself up, being able to draw barely enough to sustain herself. As she grew up, she couldn't stand that lonely life anymore. It was driving her insane, but the only thing keeping her going was the will to live. As long as Sketch thought she could come up with new unique things to draw, she wanted to push on. She spent months preparing, filling many pages with everything she could possibly need on the long journey. Finally, she was ready. With a self driving magic propelled vehicle and an Arcanite sword to defend herself, she was ready to face anything on the way. Right as whe was about to set off, a strange visitor approached. She didn't trust them, but at the same time, she felt safe, and put her sword down. They informed her that since the village was on an island in the middle of the ocean, she would never get to the nice place she wanted to get to. Sketch was offered a position at the League Of Legends. No amount of riches or power would convince her to go, since she could draw all that herself. But when offered company with "equally cool people," she accepted. Companions were one thing she just could never make. After a long travel, she arrived at the mostly unknown place called the League of Legends, and met some new friends. Not just any friends, but those that had secretly helped her that day her village was destroyed. They were strange ones, with odd powers and personalities, but they were the only ones she had. No matter what would happen later, she would always fight to keep them alive.

1. Mechanics Since I'm not a Riot employee, lemme just make up some terminology for some stuff. Instant attack - instant damage, no matter what. Ex. any melee attack Projectile attack - shoot a projectile which does damage on hit. May or may not be homing. Constant damage/effect - anything that deals damage/has an effect as long as the target(s) is/are touching the object(s)/projectile(s)/whatever(s). Basic homing - moves in a straight line towards the target, impossible to miss. Ex. pretty much any ranged non-skill-shot attack Complex homing - where the projectile accelerates towards the target, more comparable to gravity. No known examples. With this, it's possible to continously dodge it and never let it hit.

So the abilities have one gimmick in common. Normally, you use the cursor to aim and tap the key to use the ability. With these, you hold down the key, use the mouse to draw a line (like with a pencil), and release the key to use the ability. The longer the line, the more mana used and the longer the cooldown. It's linear. The mana cost is highlighted while holding down the key. The ability is automatically used if the mana cost equals your current mana. The ultimate works a bit differently. So for the Q, W, and E abilities, when I say the relative cost I mean mana cost and cooldown for the same length of line.

Passive - Perspective Shift Multiplicative speed boost while not seen by the enemy team. Because it's multiplicative, the boost increases if you get items to move faster. This accomplishes two things: -Better mobility -You always know when they can or cannot see you

Q - Split Canvas Cheapest. Cast range is about the size of your vision. Instant effect on cast. Line must all fit inside cast range when button is released. Deals damage to all enemies along the line. Damage scales with Attack Damage and ablitiy level. Damaged enemies get a status effect called "Recently Hit". While they have this, they cannot take damage from this ability. This effect lasts for about 1s at ability level 1, and about 0.2s at ability level 5.

W - Draw Seekers Medium cost. Cast range is about the size of your vision. Line must all fit inside cast range when button is released. Starting from where the line started, it spawns small projectiles, going along the line and stopping at the end. These projectiles start with 0 velocity and accelerate towards the nearest enemy champion. Acceleration rate scales with ability level. If no enemy champions are in the homing range, it favours buildings and epic monsters slightly over monsters and large minions, and those slightly over regular minions. It uses complex homing, and is not locked onto the initial target, meaning someone can walk in, and if they are closer, it will target them instead. The projectiles spawn with an amount of magic damage scaling with the ability level, and as they travel they gain additional magic damage scaling with Ability Power. The homing range starts just larger than your vision and scales up with the ability level, until it can go all the way across the map at level 5 to track and hit an enemy champion.

E - Blurred Barrier Most expensive. Cast range is VERY short. Cursor must always be within the cast radius, but the line does not need to fit in the cast radius. Delayed effect on cast. Creates a barrier all along the line, with the duration scaling with ability level and Ability Power. It doesn't physically block movement, but has a constant effect, dealing magic damage and applying a major slow to any enemy (champion or not) that touches the barrier. Enemy projectiles that pass through the barrier are weakened, regardless of the actual effect. The weakening scales with your resistances and the ability level. Some abilities cannot be used by enemies over the barrier. Basically, if it's not an ultimate, a dash/teleport, or a skillshot, and it has a way to bypass the barrier, the barrier would "cancel" the ability. Ex. an enemy Sketch cannot cast Q or W over the barrier, since it can bypass barriers.

R - Erase Always costs all your mana and has a flat cooldown, which is reduced by ability level. Does not follow the conventions of the other abilities. Cast range is just larger than your vision. Start by hovering over the target and holding down the key. This adds an indicator on your screen. The target must be within the cast range when you start the spell, but after, you only need to have vision of it. If you lose vision of the target the ability is cancelled and put on a short cooldown. Once initiated, a circle will appear above their head. Move your cursor into the circle. It will randomize a direction, clockwise or counterclockwise. For every 360 degrees your cursor goes around the target (assuming it's the correct direction) you gain one stack of "Precision" and the direction is re-randomized. On release, all stacks of Precision and any mana you have are consumed. After that, the effect will happen even if they exit your vision or go back to spawn, etc. You will rapidly deal damage in the form of instant hits, one hit per stack of Precision. Each hit deals physical damage scaling with ability level and your Attack Damage. If you have Life Steal, it is applied, stronger than usual. After the last physical damage hit, an extra instant hit is added. This deals magic damage scaling with the ability level, your Ability Power, and the mana that was consumed. A small fraction of the damage is converted into true damage. This increases with ability level but is pretty small even at level 3. Once the abilty is released, NOTHING will stop the damage chain from occuring. Cooldown changes with ability level only. Cooldown reduction instead scales the last hit, which scales with mana consumed and Ability Power as well.

So that's the abilities. Notice that I haven't even stated if it's melee or ranged. I'll get to that.

The items. You cannot leave spawn at the start until you get a weapon. The Tier 1 weapons are free, and you can swap between them at the shop.

Dagger -melee +more damage +more attack speed +instant damage

or

Bow and Arrow +ranged -unlike other basic attacks, the projectiles are NOT homing at all, so they're dodgeable

Every 4 levels after champion level 1 you unlock the next tier, up to Tier 5 at level 17. Each time, you have exactly 2 choices. After Tier 1, the weapons cost gold, and you cannot revert or swap them. You're stuck on the path you pick. No weapon is good at everything. So from Tier 1 to Tier 4, the chain diversifies to give a lot of different options for specializing. At Tier 4, you have 16 weapons that are pretty different. At Tier 5, things get really interesting. It'll cost about the same as two big items, but Tier 5 will give you an option of two different "Enchantments" for the weapon you got at Tier 4. You get a passive effect and an active ability. It's like having a second ultimate. Except it's in the form of an item, and it doesn't involve drawing. They also have different cooldowns, etc. Unfortunately I have not created the full list of 62 differnt weapons across all tiers, but I have some examples. Names are generic because 62 is a lot to remember. Also, if Riot decides to implement it, and wants to be more newbie-friendly, it might be better to make it every 5 levels, so that there are 4 tiers instead of 5, and 30 items total. 16 at tier 4. On a separate note, for balance reasons, some items would have to work differently to be fair. For example, on hit ability triggered effects would have to be nerfed because of how spammable the Q and W abilities are. From Dagger, you have the choice of: Shield -melee +more damage +more attack speed +instant damage +resistances

or

Sword -melee +some more damage +some more attack speed +instant damage +a bit more range

From Bow and Arrow you have the choice of: Staff +ranged +some armour penetration +homing projectile

or

Crossbow +ranged +more damage +faster projectile

Some examples of Tier 4/5:

From Crossbow: Sniper Rifle (4) +ranged +much longer range +extended vision +instant hit +very high damage +replaces basic attack with multi-hit attack that damages all enemies in a straight line

And the Tier 5 enchantments for it: Enchantment: Cripple (5) Passive: Applies a slow on hit. Additive, can completely immobilize a unit. Disabled temporarily if an enemy champion is immobilized by this. Active: Fire a high damage critical shot that stuns, and has a slow after the stun. Deals true damage.

Enchantment: Ignition (5) Passive: Deals magic damage over time to a target that has been hit, repeatedly, for some duration. They take more damage while they have that effect. Stacks with itself. Will spread to enemies they touch. Healing extinguishes the fire. Active: Fire a shot that adds huge magic damage over time. Deals much more damage to shields. While the target has that effect they take much more damage.

Another example:

From Sword: Blade of Time (4) -melee +increased move speed +much more attack speed +more damage +instant damage +increased stats when nobody else is around

Tier 5 enchantments: Enchantment: Pause (5) Passive: Damage grants the damaged enemy a debuff, making all slows, stuns, etc. last longer on them. If they are slowed, stunned, etc. the debuff's duration is refreshed. Active: Freeze the game and everything in it except for you, for a short duration. During this time you have greatly increased movment speed and attack speed.

Enchantment: Replay (5) Passive: After using any ability, a mirror "replay" of it will occur with the exact same circumstances several seconds later. This version is weaker. Ex. If you use your Q to draw a circle, several seconds later, the circle damage will happen again in the same place but that one will deal less damage than the original. Active: Rewind to 1s earlier. Always favours your team. Ex. If Garen used his ultimate and almost killed someone, you rewind right after, the enemy will still have that low health and Garen can use his ultimate again. Basically, if it happened in the past second, you can rewind and make it happen again.

So I have thought of other things, like another thing evolving from Sword that makes your passive stronger and deals much more damage from behind, a thing evolving from Shield that creates a resistance aura and grants huge resistance from the front, a thing evolving from Staff that makes your basic attacks chain indefinitely to nearby enemies, a thing that replaces your basic attacks with a cone multi-hit attack, a thing that makes your basic attacks independant of movement (so you can attack while moving), a thing that replaces your basic attacks with a projectile, a thing that creates a shield bubble for you and your teammates, etc.. But I've still got a long way to go before all 62 are filled up, and a lot of details to fill in, so if all you people reading this could suggest more via commenting, it would be great. If Riot Games is going to see this, I at least want them to see a somewhat completed champion.

Let me just name four more example because I use them in another section. From Crossbow: Grenade Launcher (4) +ranged -projectile, not homing +pretty fast projectile +high damage +if it hits an enemy, it creates an explosion dealing damage to all possible targets in an area +explosion works against buildings

Tier 5 enchantments: Enchantment: Rockets (5) Passive: Replaces grenades with rockets that use complex homing and lock onto their targets. They accelerate as they travel, and the longer they remain in the air, the larger the explosion. Active: Target any location on the map. Fires a nuke which slowly travels across the map. On contact with an enemy champion, it explodes, dealing huge physical damage with additional true damage over time, to the enemy champion hit and any other targets in the explosion radius.

Enchantment: Barrage (5) Passive: After hitting the same target a few times, the next attack fires cluster bombs, with multiple less damaging secondary explosions. For the purposes of this passive, all minions count as the same target. Active: Rapidly fires many grenades at the cursor. Consecutive hits against the same target deal extra damage.

From Staff: Burst Scepter +ranged +replaces basic attack with 3 multi-hit projectiles, one in the middle and two at the sides +these projectiles come back using basic homing, and deal pure magic damage on the way back +decent amount of armour piercing +bonus damage to anything that isn't a minion +increases Ability Power

Tier 5 enchantments: Enchantment: Splitter (5) Passive: The projectile in the center is larger, and on the first hit, will split into a few smaller similar projectiles. Can split twice if used against enemy champions. Active: Fires a very high damage projectile that will stun on hit, and detonates after a few seconds or on reactivation. On detonation, it shoots a few rings of projectiles, which all deal damage and slow. They also split on contact with enemy champions.

Enchantment: Leech (5) Passive: Steals a fraction of the target's health on hit. Much weaker against champions for balance reasons. Active: Creates a controllable beam for a few seconds with a constant effect. Enemies hit take damage and drop life bubbles worth a bit more health than the damage dealt before factoring in resistances. You and your teammates can pick these up to get healed. Can overheal in the form of a shield. The life bubbles also slowly gravitate towards the player on your team with the lowest health.

From Shield: Arcanite Shield (4) -melee +instant damage +slow on hit +some resistance to you and your teammates +negate a lot of damage from the front (against everything except true damage, area of effect etc. uses damage source to check front/back) +more health regen to you and your teammates +generate a shield after not taking damage for several seconds

Tier 5 enchantments: Enchantment: Barrier (5) Passive: Your E costs loss and is more powerful. Active: Plant your shield. You cannot move, but it creates a very wide barrier, like a much stronger version of your E. During this time, you take no damage from the front. Enemies cannot dash through the barrier, etc.

Enchantment: Reflection Passive: Gain 1 stack of "Damage taken" per 1 damage taken. If you have at least 1, on your next attack, consumes all stacks and deals a fraction as bonus magic damage. Active: Raise your shield. During this time, any damage taken by you or neaby allies give you stacks (1 stack per 1 damage). Once it's over, fire a very high speed undodgeable projectile and discharges all stacks as true damage to a target enemy champion. Uses basic homing.

From Staff: Sketchbook (4) -no more basic attacks +huge mana buff +big Attack Damage buff +lots of bonus Ability Power +small fraction of raw <stat> is given as bonus <stat> for each stat +previous bonus is more powerful on Ability Power +some cooldown reduction

Tier 5 enchantments: Enchantment: Sentinel (5) Passive: Gives nearby friendly buildings health regeneration. Makes friendly inhibitor respawn timers move faster. While standing near a destroyed building, it slowly rebuilds. If you stay near a destroyed building for long enough, it will respawn with low health, fully functional. Active: Spawn a sentinel. This is a small building with attacks and a lot of health, stronger than a tower. Spawns in hyper mode with special effects, then reverts to regular mode. In regular mode, click on it to toggle the effect, disabling it for a few seconds. After spawning, it pulses, sending out a long range shockwave. It will only hit moving targets. It deals true damage and stuns. After that it spins, rapidly firing out fast projectiles in a straight line. These deal constant true damage on hit, and after a certain duration, turn into special more powerful minions that provide no gold on kill. After that it fires three large projectiles, all very slow. These deal constant true damage, stun, and have knockback. After that it exits hyper mode. In regular mode you click on it to toggle its functions. In one mode, it spins around, firing projectiles, but these deal magic damage instead and do not turn into minions. In another, it periodically fires large projectiles, but these are slower and deal magic damage, and slow. In another mode, it periodically pulses, dealing magic damage and slowing if the target is moving. In another mode, it has a slowly spinning laser that stops on terrain or walls, dealing constant magic damage to anything not moving.

Enchantment: Minion (5) Passive: Periodically spawns empowered minions, alternating between melee and caster, and one in several will be siege (super if enemy inhibitors are gone). These minions turn into their regular minion counterparts if you and the minion are too far away from each other, but they follow you when you try to leave them, so this shouldn't happen. Empowered minions have more health, health regeneration, armour, attack speed, and will deal increasing damage on consecutive hits against the same target. They also move faster and have a boost depending on their type. Melee minions have life steal. Caster minions inflict burn. Siege minions deal bonus damage to anything that isn't a champion. Super minions have all three buffs. Active: Makes your minion wave spawn timer go faster for a duration. During this time, all minions spawned will be empowered. Spawns a group of empowered minions around you immediately on activation.

2. Gameplay So I've already said this is a very versatile champion. I'm not going to discuss the evolutionary weapon system much, just the abilities first.

So your passive let's you run around the map quickly as long as they can't see you. So let's say you're jungling. That's great. When you lose the movement speed buff randomly, you know you've either run into a ward or something else. If it seems like a good ward spot, you can just continue. But if it doesn't make sense for them to have a ward there, the team's probably going to come kill you so you should turn back.

Your Q is a bit of an oddball. You can use it to get easy pokes early on, if you can handle the mana cost. Plus, it doesn't deal that much damage because it scales with Attack Damage. If you're playing as the ADC, especially with melee weapons since they're generally more damaging, you can use quick short swipes on enemy champions to rapidly deal damage, and deter them away from your lane. On the other hand, that makes you vulnerable, since your only defence is offense. However, in the typical meta team the ADC has a support to make sure they don't die. In midgame, if you play ADC Sketch, this should be your primary damage source. Continously spamming a level 5 Q will deal a lot of damage.

Your W doesn't deal that much damage, unless you're going AP. That's typical for mid lane AP assassins. The projectiles don't grant vision, but they'll tell you what direction they're in. Combined with the fact that they always attack the nearest enemy champions, an experienced player can pretty easily deduce where the enemy is. Of course, until late game, it should always be targeting the other mid laner. If it goes into the bush or behind you, run away. That means you're getting ganked.

Your E is really just there for defense. It has a short cast range and a delay, making it nearly impossible to cast on top of someone. However, if the target is stunned, and you built AP, you can cast it on them to get free damage and a slow. Because supports usually don't build AP though, it doesn't scale much and is already pretty strong just with the ability levelled up. As a support, you can use that to buy some time or even stop them entirely if you use it right.

Your R is a very powerful ability. Both ADCs and mid lane AP assassins would deal a lot of damage with it, but mids with less effort. Just by getting more mana you also make it more powerful, since it consumes all your mana. There's always the issue of whether you should use it first to start the fight and deal huge damage or as a finsiher. As a finisher, you'll already have used a lot of mana so you won't deal nearly as much damage, but it should still be a lot. Why do I feel like it's fair to let it deal a ton of damage? Because you literally can't do anything else while you're busy circling them. It makes you vulnerable to a lot of stuff. No matter what role you're playing, it's always useful.

So a few example games that maybe could've happened.

In one, I play ADC Sketch. I have Thresh as my support. We start the game, and find out we're up against Graves and Leona. Graves has a shotgun, so I definitely want to build that as my weapon to counter. I start with Bow and Arrow, and get my Q. Unsurprisingly they play very defensively, and I barely manage to poke them. But Thresh and I are dominating bot lane. So a few levels later, I decide I need to upgrade. I get a bit aggressive and force them back. Graves is at low health, and Leona is melee, so I feel safe leaving the lane to Thresh. I recall and upgrade to Crossbow. I come back to lane and keep farming, occasionally spawning some seekers with my W to get easy scratch damage. That early farming phase is boring. Skip several levels, a few items, a couple kills and ganks later, and then things get interesting. Our jungler is in top side river, killing the Rift Scuttler. We notice their mid laner pops out of lane in that direction, so our jungler quickly places a ward on Baron and runs out. Graves and Leona pop out of bot as well, going in the same direciton. Thresh and I loosely trail behind them, and the rest of our team follows, all heading towards the spot near Baron, on the other side of the wall. Thanks to the ward we see the four of them and Baron. Their Ahri is somewhere else. I get in range and start circling Baron with my ultimate, gaining lots of stacks. Ahri then backstabs me, and I release right before I die. Baron Nashor takes some big damage and we steal it. Worth it. The remaining members of our team proceed to murder their entire team and get an ace. After that they take dragon and get a free tower. Definitely worth it. Skip to late game. We've pushed them back to their base, and I now have a Grenade Launcher as my weapon, and some other items. They're playing really cautiously, and somehow, they're holding the base tower while staying well out of our ability ranges. Then they have a team fight. I get killed, and not long after 3 others get killed. Our Master Yi has to 1v5 them. I upgrade to Enchantment: Rockets, and as soon as I respawn, I shoot the nuke and start walking across the map. Master Yi baits them into it, they get nuked, and Master Yi gets a pentakill. Then we get an easy push for the win.

So what happened there? The Q by itself makes ADC Sketch very viable, though it'll chew up your mana quickly early on, it deals consistent ranged damage, and is great for poke/scratch damage. The ranged weapons aren't homing, but the Q scales with AD rather than AP so it's pretty balanced. The W isn't great for pure damage when building AD, but it can be used for revealing and scratching from afar. The R will continue dealing damage even after the you're dead. So in this sample game scenario, their Ahri couldn't stop me from stealing Baron, because we had a ward there. If you can target it and it's close enough, you can use your R on it. I'm an ADC, so I didn't take teleport. But if I did, I could've started the R, teleported back to base and stolen Baron without being in danger myself. Weapon specializing is very important. I got Rockets at the end because without it, we would have a hard time pushing. The nuke deals big damage to their team and the grenades are replaced by homing rockets, which work vs buildings. Besides, I was the ADC.

Next game.

I call fill, and nobody picks mid, so I go mid Sketch. Mid laners are generally AP assassins, so I go straight for building AP. I'm up against Annie, and so I get Bow and Arrow to avoid her damage, and get my W up so I can hit her. I get a Doran's Ring and some Health Potions, and get to the lane. I go around rather than directly in the lane, and into the river bush, warding before I stepped in. When the minions are about to spawn, I use my W behind them to trick Annie into thinking I'm behind them. Being behind enemy lines at level 1 usually means a free kill for them, so Annie runs off. I get an advantage in the lane during that time. I save up mana, until Annie comes back, then I use my W to create a barrier behind Annie, forcing her to either tank the damage or engage. Annie decides she can kill me and gets ganked. I recall and use the free money to get Staff. Having some armour penetration that early on isn't necessary, but I need that for what I'm building. From then on Annie plays very defensively, and at level 6, something interesting happens. Our top laner just lost a fight against their top, and is retreating towards mid. They signal to me. I go hide in the opposite bush. They bait their top laner and Annie, pretending to be a free kill. I decide to focus Annie. I use the W to deal a lot of damage, the E with prediction to spawn a barrier on top of her, then my ultimate as a finisher. I'm out of mana, but our jungler is right around the corner, so I won't be expecting to fight their top laner anytime soon. Even with a 2 level advantage, Annie's abilities still make her much better at farming and pushing. So I decide to build a Burst Scepter. Unfortunately the rest of the team isn't holding up that well. Skip to late game. We've been pushed back to our base. Inhibitors are down, and a minion tsunami is coming. But we have a good chance. I've got a Burst Scepter now, something I wanted before for farming is now useful for clearing out the minion infestation. So me and the ADC are busy defending our base, while the others are pushing mid. Somehow, we've held this up for several minutes, getting a few kills in that time. I go back and grab Enchantment: Splitter so I can defend alone while the ADC helps the others push. The splitting shots are really good crowd control. We reach equilibrium and nothing really happens. A minute later, and the inhibitors respawn. We trust our Nasus to do enough damage, so we send him to split push while we deny entry into our base. After he takes one tower and disappear into the jungle, our support Blitzcrank teleports in and helps Nasus get a few kills. While they're distracted the other two members of my team go push for the win. I stay back and defend. Their team tries to push, but we pushed faster, and we won.

So what happened there? The W can be used to bait, because it has a limited cast range you can trick people with a nicely drawn arc. AP Sketch is ability based. No mana, no ability to play. The E has a long delay before it spawns, and is more than dodgeable, but like with any across-the-map abilities you can predict where someone will be and cast it there. It has a tiny cast range so you pretty much cast it on yourself. The main thing that makes Sketch so good is the ability to adapt to her enemy. At least until late game, by simply picking ability upgrades and buying the correct weapons and other items, Sketch can very easily adapt to counter her opponents. However, in late game, since you're stuck with the weapon you got, but they can sell/buy other items, they can counter you more easily. For this reason a team with Sketch should push for the win early, because Sketch can't modify her final build to readapt.

Next game.

I get support, and our team compositon is mainly offensive. So of course, from the start I know I want to build Arcanite Shield to help out my team. I have Ashe as my ADC and we're up against Tristana and Sona. That combination has very good offensive potential, so I decide to stick to my original plan. A teammate points out that they're building all offensive items. Though it gives them greater push potential, it also makes them easier to pick off. I keep this in mind. Their jungler ganks bot lane and makes it a 3v2. Sona slows me. I know I'm going to die, so I quickly cast my W and E, and do a single weakening circle with my R, right before they kill me. Our Ashe goes in and gets a double kill, with their Sona dying to help their Tristana get away. So we won a trade, cleared bot lane and at the same time I get to go back for upgrades. I get Shield. Skip to late game. Only the outer towers on both sides have been taken, and everything else is intact. Their team is going pure offensive, and ours is pure defensive. Even their tank is full of damages. So I use this opportunity to get Enchantment: Reflection on the Arcanite Shield. Even though it only reflects a fraction of the damage taken, their tank isn't very tanky, so it may be enough to kill them and force them to readapt. Them taking the time to rebuy items would give us an advantage and the chance to push. You can guess how the game goes from there on. We win.

So what happened there? Because the abilities persist after death, I was able to weaken them enough for my ADC to get the kills. The R can be used defensively. It's not always an attack mechanism. Tristana and Sona are both ranged, projectile based champions. The E not only damages and slows, but also weakens projectiles that pass through it, and since Ashe's passive gives her a slow on hit, Tristana and Sona would find it really hard to retaliate or retreat. The previous note is situational. The E usually isn't that useful but in this case it turned the table. Reflection is really good against an offensive team, and pretty much forces them to go defensive. This is another example of how to do good as Sketch you have to adapt to counter your opponent.

I'm not going to bother writing up stories to express how to play Jungler or Support. More importantly...

Next game. The other examples were how to win as Sketch. This example is how you might beat Sketch.

So I decided to play AD Crit Yasuo mid. I don't really care if Yasuo is actually a mid laner, this is an example game. I am up against Sketch mid, likely building pure AP. I get my Q first and a Doran's Blade. Why? Sketch gets easy pokes with Q/W, and unless it's a long fight, Sketch will ALWAYS win the 1v1. So I know I can't defend, so instead of risking losing early CS I go offensive, hoping the 3% life steal from Doran's blade will make up for the poke damage. So then comes the long laning phase where I never engage, because I know I can't win a fight. I stay back, poke with Q and farm. I use the standard Yasuo build, except I put a point into my W at level 2. Sketch used her W, and I just backed off, used my W, and the projectiles were gone. Though Sketch had a much shorter cooldown, she stopped after the second try. At one point I land my Q tornado, and follow up with my ultimate and the rest of the combo. Sketch used the time she was stunned and airborne to create a projectile wall around me, a short barrier and use her ultimate. I landed on the barrier, taking the damage and getting slowed. I used my windwall to block the projectiles, but it made me vulnerable to her basic attacks. She flashed away and started attacking me from afar. I waited for my Q cooldown, flashed and used my E to close the gap, and killed her. I use this opportunity to recall and buy items. I'm 1 level and around 300 gold ahead by the time Sketch returns to lane. Sketch got a Scaling Wand, an upgraded version of Staff that has the specialty of stats have a small multiplier added, making every item slightly better. She doesn't have any other major items yet, so I'm safe. I already have an Infinity Edge, and I'll get Rapid Firecannon next. After another bit of laning, Sketch pushes forward. I launch her up, up my combo without my ultimate since it's still on cooldown, and let her run off with a bit of health left. Though I wanted a kill, I didn't want to risk getting ganked or trapped in their tower. I keep farming peacefully, getting about 200 gold advantage in that time while Sketch was recalling, healing, and returning to lane. Though Sketch doesn't start a fight, I notice our jungler happens to be counterjungling, so I signal for them to get into position. I engage, and chase her back to the tower. She knows I can flash to get a tower dive kill, so she continues running, and runs into our jungler. Sketch died. I went back and used the extra money to help build a Rapid Firecannon. Skip to late game. I'm a full crit Yasuo now, and their Sketch has Sketchbook with Enchantment: Sentinel to try and counter me. I don't want to risk dying, so I play safe and get Warmog's Armour. I only need to not get hit for 8 seconds to get the major health regen buff. We push to their base, and trade a few players. Somehow, it ends up being me vs Sketch in a 1v1. After both of us are at low health, Sketch places a sentinel right beside me. I run off and start dodging, using my W to effectively cancel the spin shot bullets. I get around through the jungle, flash over the wall, use my abilities and get a kill. I destroy the sentil with abilties, then recall and continue progressing towards full build. I don't think I need to continue.

So a lot of things happened there, and you probably figured them out but I'll explain them anyways. Yasuo is naturally a good counter for AP Sketch specifically. His Q and R act as very good disablers while dealing high damage, his W allows him to block a lot of projectiles from Sketch's W, and his E allows him to chase Sketch. It's a dash, so it and Flash both ignore the slow from Sketch's E. Sketch has a Q scaling with AD and a W scaling with AP, both with long cast ranges. As such, a good Sketch can poke and deal high damage without using a lot of mana. Yasuo has ridiculous damage potential though, so since Sketch attacked me, I engaged. Though Yasuo's W has a longer cooldown than Sketch's W when used to poke, Sketch stopped because she didn't want to be left with not enough mana in an actual fight. Sketch later got Sketchbook. Sketchbook replaces basic attacks with much more powerful abilities by granting more mana, more AP (for W, E and R), more AD (for Q and R) and more CDR. I was carrying, so to maximize her usefulness she adapted to make it harder for me to dodge. In addition, she got Sentinel rather than Minion as the enchantment. Minion would have been much better for offense, but she got Sentinel because it's more of a defensive perk. Though the ability is mainly damaging, this damage is used defensively. As such, I counteradapted by getting Warmog's Armour so I could survive during a push. Sketch gets beaten by the thing she's best at - adaptation.

So in conclusion, what do have to say about Sketch? Pros +Easy early poke, scales with your stats +Pretty much always makes use of bonus stats +Easily adapts to counter enemy, until late game (because Tier 5 is highest, and unlocked at level 17) +Versatile and can be built to fit any role +Good mix of offensive and defensive abilities +Has an ultimate that can be used to steal Dragon/Baron +Has an ability which deals continous damage with AD scaling +Has an ability which indirectly reveals enemies and has AP scaling damage +All abilities trigger on-hit effects +Can have modified basic attacks +Cannot be countered before the game starts +Abilities cannot be cancelled or interrupted by other players (exception: target of ultimate dies) +Better mobility from the start +Know when the enemy team can see you Cons -Only escape tool is a barrier ability, which can be negated by Flash, a dash, etc. -Various items nerfed a lot on Sketch for balance reasons -Gets counter-adapted late game -Ultimate using up all mana means it's always the last ability used in a combo -Every weapon has a weakness, being more significant at higher tiers -Stats are rather low, so that expert players aren't overpowered -Really hard to learn -Requires a lot of efficiency and fast reflexes to play correctly, much more than any other champion

So yeah. Sketch wins primarily because of counteradaptation pre-late-game, and becomes weaker late game because she cannot continue weapon modifications. In addition, since experts could play ridiculously well, and barely use any mana on the Q and W, the stats would have to be rather low, otherwise a Sketch main would be OP. On the other hand, that would mean Sketch would be very hard to learn, but hey, that's how balancing works. High difficulty, highest skill cap of any champion in the game. Probably.

Also, I'm not going to dedicate an entire section to how Sketch vs Sketch mirror match-ups would work.

3. Skins Not just the reskins, but the original and how it looks. So the original. Primary team colours mean blue for your team and red for the opponent. Blue and red normally for spectators. Secondary team colours are cyan and yellow respectively. Sketch herself appears as a woman in armour she drew, not made of Arcanite but of a lesser material, with team colouration. She has her sketchbook, pencil and eraser strapped to her belt, ready for use. Designs for weapons, their animations, basic attack projectiles, etc. are up to Riot. Most weapons on the Staff path would use a generic energy orb sprite. Her Q looks like a plain dark grey stroke line, and when the button is released, it will convert to the primary team colour, and fade away soon after. Her W looks like a plain light grey stroke line, and when the button is released, it will convert to a desaturated lighter version of the primary team colour, and fade after all projectiles are spawned. Projectiles are in the shape of an arrowhead, but are made of magic primary team coloured energy and face their target. Her E looks like a plain thick grey stroke line, and when the button is released, an animation will occur. This traces the line and converts it to a desaturated secondary team colour. This is synced with the barrier spawn delay, so when it finishes the line, the barrier actually spawns ingame, and the line becomes fully saturated, glowing, and having a stream of particles go upward. On lower quality graphics you have less particles, and they are larger. Her R is rather complicated. In the spinning phase, while the button is held, everything is the secondary team colour. A small circle will be present at the center of the target champion's location. About a quarter of a screen above this is the sign, telling you to go either clockwise or counterclockwise, using a symbol. A ray, originating from the center circle and passing through you cursor location, highlights the current angle, and an arc is drawn between the ray and a short line going up from the center, to tell you how much of the circle you have completed so far. A number in large plain text is displayed above, counting your Precision stacks. When the button is released, arrows like those from the W spawn above their head at randomized positions, except they are larger and secondary team coloured. There is one for each stack of Precision, plus one very large glowing one with particles coming off for the last hit. They all fall, with some math done to synchronize them, so each one corresponds to one hit, and the last huge one, always directly above their head, smashes down when the final magic damage blow happens. During this time and for a short period after, there will be three damage counters, for physical, magic and true damage dealt. As for the passive, incase it wasn't obvious enough, when you're out of the enemy team's sight and you have the speed boost, the edges of your vision will be darkened, and like in slow motion movies, you'll leave a short trail. This is purely cosmetic, and is only visible to you. When you recall, a large piece of poster paper will appear behind you. You'll freeze in place, as if becoming a drawing on the paper. A blade from somewher comes and cuts out Sketch, and a hand comes down, grabs Sketch, and pulls her cutout into the sky. The cutout will appear at the spawn platform and Sketch will pop off. The paper will disappear into the ground. If you cancel the animation, any blade/hand will go back into the sky, the paper will disappear and Sketch will pop off.

I have some skin ideas to make Sketch look way cooler. Concept Art Sketch Arguably the best worst skin. (worst best? does it matter?) The regular stuff is replaced by concept art, adapted where needed to work better. Lines drawn use a pencil line texture, etc.

Terabyte Sketch The whole theme is that it's digital. Sketch will appear to be in enchanted regular armour, with square primary team coloured particles surrounding her very closely, in the shape of her armour. Additionally, the Sketchbook, pencil and eraser are replaced with a tablet and stylus. Weapons, etc. are reskinned to be very intricate and fit the theme, with detail and pixelation being more important than being functionally accurate. All lines will appear pixelated, with small arrows at the ends to show precise start/end points. To make things easier for me, whenever I say "pixel particle" I mean a square primary/secondary team coloured particle meant to look like a large pixel. On release, her Q will additonally produce a stream of small primary pixel particles. This is done per segment of the line, so it appears all along the line and has more for a longer line. The projectiles from the W will look like the default cursor sprite, except it points forward and is primary team coloured. They leave behind a trail of small primary pixel particles. The line from the E will create a wall of secondary pixel particles stacking above the line, which individually change colour into primary. This is random, and synchronized so that the shield is all primary coloured when it disappears. At that point, the particles fall and fade away. Enemies slowed by the E get trapped in a pixelated box. This is purely cosmetic and does not impact gameplay. When they move, the box will follow them, until the slow is gone. The R is pretty much the same as usual. Each arrow is replaced by a group of 9 small secondary pixel particles. It is animated so the 9 particles fade in rapidly, clump together in a 3x3 formation to form a larger pixel particle, then that larger pixel particle spikes down, being synchronized with the actual hit. The largest final hit uses a group of 25 which build a 3x3 and 4x4 individually first, then combine to form a 5x5. In additon, the sign uses more pixelated square symbols, and the font is pixelated. When you're out of sight and your passive is active, there will also be grey pixel particles on the edge of your vision. When recalling, a cursor will appear, and like a normal click and drag, it will move to "select" Sketch. Once selected, text will appear above displaying "Ctrl + X" and will finish typing synced with the teleport back. Sketch will appear at the spawn platform with a temporary "Ctrl + V" over her head. If the recall is aborted, any text currently on screen will fade, selection box and cursor disappear, and Sketch will go back to normal.

Paracosm Sketch Look up the word paracosm. Right now. It's a real word. Anyways, this is like the "upgraded" version of the default. More effects, and probably actually better in competitive. Though normally skins are supposed to be purely cosmetic, this skin will likely give you an advantage. Because of that, maybe this should be relatively cheap and affordable (<= 400 RP, or maybe buyable with a lot of IP, if it gives the player even a slight ingame advantage, free to play players shouldn't have to spend real money to get it) Sketch will be in special armour, glowing and giving off particles. When you are out of enemy sight, you become grayscale and give off black particles. In addition, a dark shadow version will appear where you were last seen, and fade quickly. Only you can see these effects. Weapons, etc. are reskinned to look as cool as possible. Instead of plain lines, the lines would taper off at the ends. The start would have a very long taper, and the end would have a very short one, resulting in a wide angle at the end point and a very small angle at the start point. This effect is most prominent on the Q, somewhat on the R (in the form of a trail), and also shows up on the W. The E is much more equal, but the bias is still present for convenience. Additionally, whenever the Q, W, or E button is held down and the ability is being used, a ring of particles will appear that show the cast radius. Only you can see this. The ring spins slowly for full coverage. The R "range" is infinite, so no cast radius is shown. All text uses a font that looks similar to handrwiting, to imitate Sketch writing things out. The Q additonally has a damage counter, which appears above the center of the line (estimate with some math) and counts all damage done with that one Q. If the Q is used again within a few seconds of it's cooldown finishing, the previous damage counter number is added, so that it ends up tracking a total of all recent Q damage. Thw projectiles from the W now leave a short gradient trail, appearing to be the "tails" of the projectiles. They are drawn the same way as the other lines, except they are thinner and fade out at the end. The start point is where the projectile was recently, the end point is the current location, and each point inbetween is where it was a certain amount of time ago between, accordingly. Most likely will use a bezier curve, but maybe there will be a better more convenient way to draw the lines. The E will spew out particles perpendicular to the head of the line in the being drawn animation, and all along the line there will be a stream of particles going up from the line. Players slowed have a tail similar to the projectiles in the W, except it's much wider, and longer. It stops tracking them and fades away when the slow is gone. The R normally has one arc to show the completion of the cirlce, but now there will be an additional arc for each stack of Precision. The spacing of the the arc (in terms of radius) would decrease with more arcs. The radius of the smallest arc is preset, and the radius of the largest arc would be that plus something multiplied by the logarithm of the number of stacks, and to get the individual spacing you would divide that by the number of stacks minus 1. That's real math, and probably optimal. Also, don't bother precalculating it, someone's going to be breaking the world record for most damage by applying a ton of stacks. Will they have this skin? Maybe. When the passive is active, the terrain will change. Not completely, enough to be noticable but subtle enough to not be distracting. Overall, Summoner's Rift (or whatever the map is) would change to look more happy. When recalling, Sketch will quickly draw something, and tear the page out. The page becomes a large mystical blade, which cuts the ground around her as if the ground is paper. Once 3 sides of a square are cut, the ground folds open, the blade retracts into the sky, and Sketch jumps in. The actual teleport occurs as soon as Sketch jumps. Sketch will climb out of a slit in the ground at the spawn platform. If the recall stops, Sketch will go back to normal, the cut lines will disappear, and the blade will retract into the sky. If stopped before the blade appears, Sketch will put the sketchbook away.

Sketched Sketch A sort of draw it yourself thing. Some things are customizable, others are not. Not entirely sure how it would work. Enough tools would have to be given so players could draw what they wanted, but some limitations (no uploading images, etc. for obvious reasons) would have to be in place. Riot's biggest worry would be people drawing other champions. Who needs their skin? Just play imposter Sketch. No, seriously, there would have to be enough restrictions so any imitations are very obvious imitations. Also, incase someone wants to draw something inappropriate, there would have to be some kind of approval process. Maybe have a library of premade drawings you can use, and have people draw their own things and request those to be added for usage.

4. Comments

I started out with the ideas of drawing lines and another of evolution. So I built the drawing idea, and ended up with a somewhat completed Sketch. I didn't feel finished yet, and I realized I could merge the two ideas. So I got the Sketch I have right now, and after getting around the technical issues, I filled out lore and other stuff. I had to make some examples of gameplay, so I needed to first figure out how Sketch would work. Though there's a lot of things unique about Sketch, the one key thing to know is that Sketch wins by adapting to counter her opponent, and that in late game Sketch loses by no longer being able to adapt. Tier 5 items are final. So are tier 5 abilities (3 for ultimate). I talked with my friend about it, and they always used two arguments. The first was "can a pro player use this and become overpowered?" like how even though Sketch's E has a medium length delay before it appears, can a Sketch main predict it and cast it on top of someone? The other argument was "even if this is easy to counter, can a newbie counter it?" like with the whole counteradapting thing.

At the end of the day, I feel like this champion has some real potential. Though Jhin at first was ridiculously unbalanced and overpowered, Riot managed to balance it.

I'm a programmer and I've made two games so far, both very unpopular. I know what's easy and what's hard to make. Both the drawing aspect and the evolving weapon items would force a complete redo of the game engine and would likely be a nightmare to code. Not to mention how difficult it would end up being to test. Don't forget the aesthetics, skins, etc. How would those be implemented? Sketch seems like an impossible champion to create. Then again, Riot has made Jhin, and they completely redid the basic attacks, functioning completely differently from otehr champions, and having all those stats. They accomplished something I didn't think they would take that much effort to make. But they've got a dedicated team. I'm so bad at programming, I can't even figure out hitbox detection. I suppose that should be easy considering I'm good at math. Riot, I believe in you. Please make this a thing!

So as for everybody else, and maybe Riot if they look at this, feedback would be much appreciated. Let me know what you think, and what could be done to improve it. If you want me to create the full weapon evolution tree, or do my best to create a demo of it in ProcessingJava, let me know. If you're good at writing stories, and you have some spare time, feel free to redo the lore, but better. I acknowledge I'm bad at that. If you know how balancing works and think you can contribute some actual numbers, please do.

I took a really long time typing this up, any feedback would be appreciated. Also, thanks for taking the time to read through this entire wall of text. Have a cookie. I mean biscuit.

Check out other champion ideas by other people here: http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/skin-champion-concepts/43gBydKo-champion-idea-trading-reviews-we-are-all-dreaming-of-red-reply