Yu Xiang, the Fury of Demacia (Leopard Champion)

Lord Acacius·10/17/2015, 2:35:10 PM·3 votes·2,630 views

[(http://koutanagamori.deviantart.com/art/Mercenary-of-Leopard-196885934)] http://koutanagamori.deviantart.com/art/Mercenary-of-Leopard3-196894959 http://koutanagamori.deviantart.com/art/Mercenary-of-Leopard2-196894748 http://koutanagamori.deviantart.com/art/Masquerade-costumes-206300214 <--- Masquerade Skin? http://koutanagamori.deviantart.com/art/Eugene-gallardo-188311444 <---- Black Panther Skin?

Yu Xiang, the Fury of Demacia "Xiang Yu" is a famous warlord of the Qin Dynasty.

Role: Fighter

Lore: Within the Kumungu Jungles, many hardships occur, some even life threatening. That goes to say for Yu Xiang's parents, who he never really knew. While expeditioning in the Kumungu Jungles, a Demacian research team found the young leopard. Many of the researchers referred to Rengar, the feral huntsman. Believing that the child leopard would have extreme battle prowess like Rengar. They housed and fed the nameless leopard, who was only a few years of age, living on his own without parents. He was then asked to come to Demacia, where he was promised a better life. Being brought back to Demacia under peaceful terms, he was be placed in recruitment for the Demacian army. During his training here, the young leopard stood out, having particular skill with the Halberd. His skill with the staff weapon spread throughout Demacia, catching the attention of Xin Zhao, Seneschal of Demacia, who also had skill with a staff weapon. Xin Zhao would raise the leopard and give him the name Yu Xiang. Yu Xiang would turn out to be the perfect disciple for the legendary Xin Zhao, adopting all of his methods with ferocious prowess. To this day, Yu Xiang serves as the apprentice to Xin Zhao, and a loyal soldier of Demacia's ranks.

Passive: Halberd Yu Xiang attacks in a 3 strike combo, performing 2 normal auto attacks, and on the 3rd strike, a modified attack. 3rd strike: A stab attack that deals damage in a straight line that extends slightly beyond 250 attack range (applies on-hit effects to all targets hit)

If Yu Xiang uses an ability while he is on the 3rd strike of his combo, his abilities gain additional modifying effects.

Q: Crippling Sweep

Yu Xiang performs a sweep attack, dealing moderate physical damage and slowing all targets struck for 2 seconds within a wide cone. If Yu Xiang uses Crippling Sweep on the 3rd strike of his combo, the sweep covers the area around him, rather than in a wide cone.

Mana: 40/45/50/55/60 Cooldown: 10/ 9/ 8/ 7/ 6 seconds Damage: 60/ 85/ 125/ 165/ 200 (+50% of bonus attack damage) Slow: 20%/25%/30%/40%/45%

W: Fatal Smash

Yu Xiang performs a devastating overhead attack in an area in front of him (area is similar to Sion's Q, but smaller and more concentrated), dealing heavy physical damage, and a short mini-slow. This active has a .5 second delay. if Yu Xiang uses Fatal Smash on the 3rd strike of his combo, he will strike without a delay. Mana: 40/ 45/ 50/ 55/ 60 Cooldown: 15/ 14/ 12/ 10/ 8 seconds Damage: 85/ 100/ 150/ 200/ 250 (+70% of bonus attack damage) Mini-Slow: 90% for .5 seconds

E: Leaping Strike

1st Cast: Yu Xian leaps 2 steps forward, Cloud Strike can be cast again for no cost within 5 seconds.

2nd Cast: On his 3rd step, Yu Xiang lunges forward in any direction, catching any target in front of him under a .5 second delay. Yu Xiang then stabs, picks up, and slams his target into the ground directly behind him, applying a percent armor shred. When catching his target, a small range indicator will appear in front of him, being visible to enemies. Yu Xiang will pick up the closest target to him if he catches multiple targets. If Yu Xiang uses Leaping Strike on the 3rd strike of his combo, he will leap further on both casts.

This ability applies physical damage twice, once on the stab, and again on the slam

Mana: 50/ 55/ 60/ 65/ 70 Cooldown: 20/ 18/ 16/ 14/ 10 seconds Damage on stab: 25/ 50/ 65/ 80/ 100 (+20% total attack damage) Damage on slam: 25/ 50/ 65/ 80/ 100 (+20% total attack damage) Armor Shred: 8%/ 10%/ 12%/ 14%/ 16% of target's total armor

R: Cloud Strike

Yu Xiang leaps to target location, dealing massive damage in a large area around him. When landing, Yu Xiang gains additional resistances based on the amount of enemy champions he hits.

If Yu Xiang lands this ability in a bush, he will spread dust in the area, creating a small area in which enemy champions cannot see into, unless within it.

Mana: 150/125/100 Cooldown: 140/ 120/ 80 seconds Damage: 200/ 300/ 400 (+100% of total attack damage) Resistances gained: 5/10/15 per enemy champion

**Overview: ** Yu Xiang has a strong capability of applying minor crowd control in a large area whilst dealing a hefty amount of aoe damage, this makes him an excellent fighter/initiator.

Yu Xiang's passive allows for a strong top laner, allowing for great harass with the 3rd strike, OR a strong jungler allowing him to hit multiple targets at once.

His Q is ultimately used as a way to set up his W, allowing him to make up for the .5 second delay. This is important to the combo order of Yu Xiang, as the W will serve as his heaviest source of damage.

Yu Xiang's E "Leaping Strike" is his main mobility/crowd control ability. This short range dash, allows Yu Xiang to catch his target off guard and place him/her in a vulnerable position. Once he slams his target and shreds armor for additional damage, Yu Xiang should utilize his Q to slow and allow him to stick to his target, then carefully landing his W. This ability can also be used to great counterplay, the 2 cast system allows for a quick movement out of the way, and a way to initiate back into a fight.

His ult is utilized as an initiation and engagement tool for his team, aiming it strategically in a bush to catch enemies off guard, or to separate their team by cutting off vision, forcing the enemy team to enter the "arena" of dust. This is perfect for ambush techniques.

His ult can also be utilized in the river, for those pesky contest for objectives. When used in the river, it can greater enhance his ability to steal objectives, coming out of nowhere to steal the objective with a large amount of damage.

3 of Yu Xiang's abilities are AOE based, this makes him a strong team fighter along with the additional effects of his abilities.

http://koutanagamori.deviantart.com/art/Game-210229646 <---- Check out where I got my ideas from! Credits go to koutanagamori for this fanastic art!

That said, I think the kit as a whole is a little lack-luster, and has some flow issues. We'll see what we can do about that.

#PASSIVE: HALBERD The name is, frankly, awful. Can we get something a little more evocative? :P

The effect is interesting, certainly, but I'm not sure it's really USEFUL. The extra range is relatively small, it's only useful in incredibly packed areas, and it doesn't even have any extra damage or anything to make it feel special against a single enemy.

Also, it's REALLY awkward.

See, normally you use abilities when it's optimal to use them. Sometimes you wait a bit for things like Lich Bane to come up. But waiting until BETWEEN the attack frames of every third attack just feels bad to me. It also feels like an active punishment for chaining abilities together...which is bad, since Yu's abilities are, it seems, meant to chain together.

If you do end up keeping this passive, I'd recommend giving him a charge of Focus every 3rd attack, and having his abilities have a bonus effect if he's Focused when he uses them. That way you can at least hold onto the effect rather than losing it if he mis-times something. Maybe have Focus disappear after 5-6 seconds of not attacking.

#Q: CRIPPLING SWEEP It's not exciting, but it is functional. I'm not sure the AoE bonus is really an interesting use of the passive proc though -- you're unlikely to be in a situation where a wide cone is significantly less valuable than an AoE unless you're deep into the enemy lines.

#W: FATAL SMASH I rather like this ability. It's a nice contrast to Xin Zhao's immediate abilities that shows his apprentice might be a little less finesseful and a little more feral. I'd probably opt for a micro-stun instead of a mini-slow, just because it feels more thematically appropriate.

I'd also consider making the empowered version hit harder, or in a wider / longer area instead -- having a single ability that sometimes does and sometimes doesn't have a delay will cause readability issues, I think.

#E: LEAPING STRIKE I enjoy everything about this ability save for two things. Firstly, it throws the target behind you. Yu Xiang is a character with cone and directional CC -- the last thing he wants to do (I think) is split his enemies up so one of them is on ONE side of him and the other is on the OTHER side.

#ULTIMATE: CLOUD STRIKE Seems fine, although I don't know how long the cloud / resistances will last, which is an important factor. I'm also not sure the AoE radius, which is also pretty important. As long as the radius isn't huge (or the damage is reduced the further away you go) and the effect doesn't have massive range and is slow enough that reactions are possible, I'm not sure you'll have a huge issue. Damage might be a bit on the high side though, given that it IS an AoE ability and it does have a defensive steroid as well.

#CLOSING THOUGHTS FROM INITIAL REVIEW So your abilities are mostly fine, which is great.

But, ultimately, I think the character just falls a little flat. He doesn't bring anything particularly new or unique to the character -- he's a little bit Xin, a little bit Pantheon, a little bit Singed, but he doesn't really have anything his own.

I feel like you wanted a uniquely brutal close-to-mid-range fighter, and instead got a rather generic bruiser with no real distinguishing mechanic or features. Is my assertion of your design goal accurate, or have I missed the conceptual mark here?

I like the character concept. I think there's something really cool lurking here. I just don't think it's really been given a chance to become it's own, unique thing.

So what were you aiming for? Is he a skirmisher, a front-line disruptor, a dive fighter, or something entirely different? Should he have a combo-based gameplay, or rely on more obvious abilities? Is he more of an attacker or an ability user? Or, better yet...take the mechanics out of the picture. Write me a paragraph that shows Yu Xiang sparring against Xin Zhao and, for the first time, coming out on top. How does he do it? How does he fight? What fantasy does Yu Xiang, fighting at his peak form, seek to show the player?

THEN we can set our sights on that fantasy in particular and take another good long look at his ability set to see how (or if) we can make any changes for the better.

Yu Xiang, the Fury of Demacia (Leopard Champion)

15 Comments

That said, I think the kit as a whole is a little lack-luster, and has some flow issues. We'll see what we can do about that.

I'd also consider making the empowered version hit harder, or in a wider / longer area instead -- having a single ability that sometimes does and sometimes doesn't have a delay will cause readability issues, I think.

Secondly, tossing / throwing moves are really conceptually odd for a halberd user. I see the art you're basing it off of, but it's still a strange thing to do with that weapon.