Boards›Concepts & Creations

[Champion Concept] Tahra, the Prodigal Storm

Blaquenwhyte·6/10/2015, 7:44:46 PM·66 votes·22,412 views

With Ekko's release, I decided to try my hand at making another champion, and unlike my last one (which was Satoru, an archer ADC who was criticized for being a copy of Varus and borderline plagiarism of Hanzo from Overwatch, among other things) I tried to have this champion fill a niche that hadn't been occupied yet in League, at least not in terms of aesthetic. So what doesn't League have? Well, one of the first things that came to my mind: a battle-mage. I'm not talking about a battle-mage in the sense of a melee champion that deals magic damage and scales with AP, I'm talking about a mage, the sort that uses a staff and magic to augment their physical abilities and go toe-to-toe in a brawl, even up close and personal.

So I made Tahra.

#Tahra, the Prodigal Storm

http://th02.deviantart.net/fs70/PRE/f/2013/169/2/4/battle_mage_by_criann-d69jxsk.jpg (_Given that I'm not an artist, this is the closest visual representation to what I'm aiming for with Tahra that I was able to shamelessly mooch off people that can draw far better than I can. The only significant difference is in her staff; ideally, Tahra's staff would be much larger and have a blade on one half. You know, for stabbing things as opposed to bashing them to bits like Wukong. For those of you that have played a mage in Dragon Age 2, think that kind of staff. _)

Tahra, once a student at a prestigious school of magic in Runeterra, was likened by many of her peers and mentors to be a prodigy in the magical arts, the likes of which were only seen once every few decades, if not centuries. Though wise and skilled beyond her years, young Tahra was not immune to this flattery, and being told of the great things expected of her made her reckless. She soon began to pursue lightning magic, long thought to be unpredictable and dangerous to the likes of humans, such that there were only two other known practitioners of the magic throughout Runeterra, both of which were members of other races. Though her colleagues and teachers attempted to ward her off this path, she insisted they merely lacked confidence in her. Tahra's name spread both inside and outside of the school, and the school officials began to worry that such a wayward student would harm their reputation on top of the potentially disastrous fallout when her studies inevitably failed. Though hesitant to lose such a promising pupil, a council met and delivered Tahra an ultimatum: she would either cease her pursuit of lightning magic, or she would be dismissed from the school and barred from ever returning.

To Tahra, the decision was simple. She had long felt she was on the verge of a breakthrough, and she would not stop now. Waiting for her official dismissal was a pointless waste of time; the day after the ultimatum was delivered, she was nowhere to be found on school grounds and never seen as a student there again. Instead, she traveled across Runeterra, learning the many harsh realities outside of the pampered school life she had followed. Her obsession with lightning continued, but it was warped by another newfound desire: to prove those who had shunned her wrong. She would take her status as a mage to the very brink; not only taming the untamable lightning, but applying it in such a way to augment her physical abilities. No longer would she, as a mage, be relegated to the backline of a battlefield, supporting the troops. She would be on the front lines, tearing through the enemy in a hail of lightning-augmented blows from her bladed staff. And to all the mages that doubted her skill, she would bring a prodigal storm to their doorstep and make them know their folly.

Tahra is a melee, AP-scaling fighter and assassin. She uses her bladed staff and lightning magic to augment her physical capabilities, fighting toe-to-toe with the many seasoned warriors and sorcerers that the League has to offer. Tahra's fighting style is punctuated by brief periods of setup (charging, if you will) followed by unleashing a devastating series of attacks to finish off her foe. Her lightning magic can be used in many versatile ways, but she first requires the proper setup, which defines her fighter/assassin playstyle.

#Note: Numbers are out of my power to balance, so I avoid using them because they do not define the kit and are always malleable.

Passive | Harnessed Potential Tahra's auto attacks deal magic damage equal to her attack damage plus a percentage of her ability power. In addition, her abilities also leave Residue on affected enemies for a short time, which can be exploited.

  • First important thing to note: her auto attacks deal magic damage (instead of physical damage) and scale, more or less, from her AP. As you'll see when we get to her other skills, she'll be relying on her auto attacks quite a bit, so she needed a leg-up to make them not as terrible as most other AP champions. I kept in the AD scaling for the nutters who want to try her AD, but make no mistake, she's intended to be AP.
  • Her Residue mechanic is her defining feature, which we'll get to in a bit. At this point, suffice it to say that it's simply a debuff she places on enemies that can be consumed by her abilities to proc various effects.

Q | Impulse Tahra thrusts the blade of her staff forward, dealing magic damage in a line and applying Residue to all enemies hit.

If Impulse hits an enemy already affected by Residue, it consumes the Residue and applies Aftershock, dealing additional magic damage over time and reducing the affected enemy's Magic Resist.

  • Her main damaging, harassing, and farming tool as her Q, as with many other champions. I was imagining it to function very similarly to Yasuo's Q, except, you know, without the stacking/tornado stuff and being more like a lightning bolt thrust rather than a wind blade.
  • More importantly, here's her first Residue interaction. It can both apply and consume Residue, and if it does, you get a DoT and MR shred. The DoT seems fairly self explanatory--after all, it's her main damage and harass spell and it would reward her for consecutive Residue applications and playing perhaps a bit aggressively. But why the MR shred? Well, given that she does entirely magic damage and is classified as a "Fighter" first and foremost, I thought it only fair to give her a bit of MR shred to allow her to duke it out with other, similar fighters who will undoubtedly build tanky. The catch is that she only gets it by consuming her Residue using Q, and as we'll see, that's only one way to use it.

W | Latent Energy Passive: Tahra's auto attacks and Impulse gather static energy, granting a stacking Static buff. At maximum stacks, her next auto attack will release the Static, dealing additional magic damage, slowing the target, and applying Residue.

Active: Tahra gathers magic from the area around her, gaining a shield for a short while. Residue from enemies within the area will be consumed and strengthen the shield. While the shield persists, Tahra stacks Static twice as fast. The shield cannot exceed a certain percentage of her total health.

  • 3 PASSIVES #BIGSORRY. Also, sorry about all the names for the buffs and whatnot (we're not done yet, either)--they might seem confusing, but I assure you, they're just to add a bit more flavor to the champion, and I love naming things because that's half of creating the flavor (in my opinion, anyway). The easy way to understand this skill is that the passive component is a lot like Twisted Fate's E (the stacking auto attack buff), and the active is a lot like Jarvan's W (the shield).
  • Second Residue interaction, here we go. Her shield consumes Residue from the area around her to strengthen it, meaning that she gets some tankiness (she is a fighter, after all) at the expense of possible damage potential with her Q (and as you'll see in a bit, her E). A decent trade-off in theory, I'd say.
  • I thought for a long time about her Shen-like Static buff while her shield is active (the fact that it charges twice as fast, like Shen's passive does when his W is up). Part of me didn't particularly like it because it contradicts using the skill for tankiness instead of damage, but at the same time, it also rewards Tahra for getting major shields that can stay active for a while. Small shields won't last long, so she won't get much out of the double-stacking. Also, it just gives a nice consistent feeling when her W active ties into her W passive as well.
  • When I was theorycrafting the spell, I was never able to decide whether it would take into account nearby minions with Residue on them to strengthen the shield. As a preventative measure for ridiculous shields, I added the maximum health restriction, but ideally, it would take into account nearby minions, but perhaps in pursuit of balance they would provide less of the shield, or maybe I'm just crazy and they shouldn't count toward the shield at all.
  • Important: the slow from her W passive is her one and only CC. Yeah, that's right, all she's got is a slow. Sorry, Yasuo.

E | Arc Rush For a short time, Tahra's next auto attack gains bonus range and causes her to dash quickly to behind her target.

If her target is affected with Residue, the auto attack consumes it and Tahra gains Surge, giving a large attack speed boost for a short while.

  • Token mobility spell on E? What a surprise. This is a lot like Ekko's E, except without the actual dash beforehand. It's just a targeted, gapclosing auto attack. Why did I make it this way? Well for a first, I think it fits thematically; Tahra strikes me as a very all-or-nothing sort of girl, so it makes sense that her mobility is mainly tied to gapclosing rather than running away. Second, for someone that can get pretty arbitrarily tanky with her W (on top of how she'd build at least a little bit tanky in theory) and deal quite a bit of area damage, I thought it'd be a bit much to give her powerful two-way (engage and escape) mobility as well.
  • The Residue interaction is where things get interesting. She gains a large attack speed buff from proccing Residue with her E, which means she gets quite some hefty DPS (both from her W passive and her actual passive). The trade-off here, as with her other abilities, is that she can't get her Q DoT/MR shred or tankiness with her W without first setting up with something else.
  • Similarly, in theory, I don't have this dash-auto dealing any extra damage or applying Residue. Why? Well, as a first, she already has enough extra magic damage on her auto attacks between her W passive and actual passive (also, synergy between her W passive and this, anyone?). Second, if it applied Residue, I feel like that would make the opportunity cost/importance of setting up rather moot. If your E just set up your Residue for you, then it'd allow you to unload. If you already had Residue, it'd allow you to unload even harder at almost no cost to yourself. I much prefer the idea of setting up with your Q beforehand if you want to get your Attack Speed buff than using your E to set up everything else. If you're wondering what would scale with level, it'd be the attack speed buff and perhaps the mana cost (which would scale down).
  • Inevitable question: "what's the interaction with this and your W passive?" Alright, let's say your target has Residue on them, you have your W passive procced, and you E in. Does your E or W proc first? For the sake of quality of life, I would make it so that your E procs first, consuming the Residue and giving you attack speed, and then your W procs for the extra damage and re-applies Residue. What about if they don't have Residue on? Then your W procs first, applies Residue, then your E procs and grants the attack speed. This might be overpowered and is subject to change (so that you only get one or the other, not both), but it does reward the Tahra player for using the obvious synergy between her spells and getting some mean Residue combos off. At the very least, her W passive and E were designed with their synergy in mind, so it'd be a bit awkward to have them conflict with how they utilize Residue.

R | Storm's Dominion Tahra slams her staff into the ground, sending a shockwave of lightning across a large area around her, dealing magic damage and applying Residue to all affected enemies.

For a short while afterward, the area crackles with electricity. If Tahra casts Arc Rush from within the electric field, it does not incur a cooldown.

  • Last but certainly not least: Tahra's ultimate. Most of it is fairly cookie-cutter: large, AoE damage ability. The part where things get interesting is the aftereffect. Her ult leaves an electric field that allows her to use E without incurring a cooldown if she casts E from within the field. This means she essentially exerts a zone of control over the battlefield where she can be almost anywhere in it at any given time, provided she has a target to dash to.
  • Something I debated for a long time is whether or not to make the electric field permanently apply Residue to any enemy inside of it. As of this draft of the champion, I didn't make it do that, because I feel like if I did, her ultimate would essentially get rid of any decisionmaking the Tahra player would have to do regarding their usage of Residue. At the same time, given her lack of CC, it would add to her otherwise lacking utility quite a bit because it would make her ultimate's field that much scarier to be inside, allowing her to far better control an area of the fight and therefore force enemy champions into awkward or unfavorable positions in an effort to not be subject to her permanent Residue-enhanced assault. Thoughts?

#Strengths and Weaknesses

Phew. That's that for her abilities. Now, how do they contribute to her champion design as a whole? Overloaded? Underpowered? Missing the mark with her intended role?

I think her most glaring weakness is her lack of CC. All she's got is a slow, and her only means of otherwise controlling the battlefield is her ultimate. In that sense, she's not very capable of peeling. She can fight on even terms with an enemy bruiser and dive in to focus the enemy's carries, but when it comes to peeling for her own team (or even herself), she's woefully inadequate. Also, outside of her ultimate, she's severely lacking in any mobility that allows her to disengage, unless she finds herself in a position where she can dash to a wave of minions a la Yasuo to get away.

Her strengths? The most obvious one is probably teamfighting. Any situation where she can apply Residue to multiple enemies increases her options exponentially. She can get strong shields, has plenty of people to proc an attack speed increase off of, and can shred multiple peoples' MR at once for your AP carry to do work on. Her ultimate gives her control over a section of the teamfight and allows her some pretty insane mobility provided she stays inside of the field. Her fighting capabilities in general are nothing to scoff at, especially given her multiple uses of Residue.

The most important part of playing Tahra is realizing all of your actions carry an opportunity cost because whenever you proc Residue with one of your abilities, the Residue is consumed. Since she can only apply Residue three ways (one of which being her ultimate, and the other being a situational proc), she has to think carefully about how she uses her Residue. Her Q is a good way of applying Residue, but if you want DPS, perhaps using Residue on your E is the best course of action. And considering tankiness is needed given her danger in melee range, sometimes you'll have to use your Residue on W just to stay alive. In theory, Residue won't last that long, so she won't be able to completely zone you out of lane every time she hits you with a Q. She has very clear periods of strength, but they all rely on abusing the enemy when she can, which means that there's pretty clear counterplay to her.

Of course, this is all in theory. Without numbers, like mana costs, damage amounts, and cooldowns, it's hard to really say how she'd work out. I'm just here to throw the concept out there.

Speaking of which, that's about it for the actual champion bit. Read on for quotes and whatnot to get a hint of her personality. Other than that, thanks for reading and leave your thoughts if you're so inclined!

Selection

  • "Harness what I have and limits are a thing of the past."

Entering the game

  • "Watch and learn, pushovers."
  • "Their jaws will be hitting the floor. In surprise! I meant in surprise."
  • "Wonder if they'll be able to keep up."

Movement

  • "I hear rumbling thunder."
  • "The storm is gathering."
  • "Count the seconds."
  • "The thunder's getting closer."
  • "In a flash."
  • "Everyone's got something to prove."
  • "Rolling thunder."
  • "Dark skies ahead."
  • "Lightning has a mind of its own."
  • "There are some things you just can't control."
  • "Tame the lightning, tame the sky."
  • "Nothing feels quite as good as proving you're right."

Attacking

  • "Try and keep up."
  • "Lightning can strike twice in the same place."
  • "Not so distant anymore."
  • "Hesitation isn't my thing."
  • "The ground trembles."
  • "Judgment from on high."
  • "Electricity scares me. What must they think?"
  • "Unlimited power."
  • "You seeing this, sellouts?"
  • "They won't live long enough to hear the thunder."
  • "Don't tell me there's something I can't do."

Joke Tahra thrusts her staff into the ground, leans on it, and runs a hand through her hair while electricity crackles around her.

  • "Let me tell you: managing my hair with all this electricity is harder than mastering lightning."
  • "Sometimes I'd like to relax, but this electricity can really get on my nerves."
  • "I tried to shake hands with a mage once and my static threw him across the room. Whoops."

Near enemy Kennen

  • "Those shuriken are like bite-sized lightning bolts. They tickle!"
  • "Are you the one that makes it rain in my backyard and not my front yard?"
  • "Looking at you makes me wonder what my teachers were afraid of."

Near enemy Volibear

  • "Mastered the same hair technique as me, huh? Your fur must go crazy..."
  • "So when I hear thunder, it's actually just you walking around? Might wanna lose some weight."
  • "Lightning struck you once to get your powers? Wow! It had to strike me... what, eight times?"

Near enemy Annie

  • "Did your parents tell you not to play with fire? Good on you!"
  • "I played with lightning when I was your age. Jealous?"

Taunt Tahra reaches forward and shoves her staff into the ground, then swings around it in a circle upward into the air, pulls the staff out of the ground, and slams back down, creating a thunderclap.

  • "If you have time to hear this... then I did something wrong."
  • "One strike... and it's over for you."
  • "Your opponent isn't me... just look up."

Near enemy Xerath

  • "Ascending, huh? The only place you'll be going is down."
  • "Ascendants have to ascend. Too bad for you--the sky is all mine."
  • "I broke off my shackles long ago, Xerath. What's keeping you?"

Near enemy Ryze

  • "The knowledge you've gathered is pointless if you keep it hidden away."
  • "Go on, share what you've learned... just like I will."

I would put more jokes/taunts (for every sorcerer--I'm missing Swain, Leblanc, Syndra... to name a few, there are certainly quite a few sorcerers/mages in League), but frankly it's reaching the point where I think I've done quite enough.

If you've read this far, thanks again for your attention and feel free to leave your criticisms!

66 Comments

geekman90976/10/2015, 7:59:29 PM11 votes

Reddit got me here, but I do believe this is a wonderful champion concept. Beatiful taunts and quotes as well, but something about he "try to keep up" in her attack dialogue doesn't feel like a lightning mage, and i'm reasonably sure another champion has it too.

Tuna Unleashed6/10/2015, 7:46:30 PM7 votes

legendary

Hadriel6/11/2015, 4:09:52 AM5 votes

There are definite problems with her kit. This is by far the best fanmade champion kit I've ever seen, and I actually love the name you gave her abilities and effects.

I do think her melee range coupled with an AoE residue consuming ability in W will remove deliberate decisions on residue usage. Most of the time W will consume residue on the enemies by default simply because of its nature. You generally won't get the choice to conscientiously choose how to use your available passive uses during a fight because, and this is th other problem, AP bruiser itemization will not allow you the liberty to delay using W after she goes into the fray.

She would be the second coming of Diana. She'll need good enough ratios to justify her building AP which will push her into an assassin role (slow, shield with AoE interactions, resettable gapcloser, autoattack based... Sounds familiar) or low ratios but high enough base values that will almost certainly push her into a tank role instead of a fighter. Sure, you'll be able to build her AP bruiser... in solo queue. Otherwise, she'll see a bit of play during her assassin period and fail to be viable whenever she's tweaked into the bruiser role: Diana.

Odadrab6/10/2015, 7:57:57 PM3 votes

PLS RITO, MAKE THIS A THING! I'LL summoner 4 TO MAKE SURE I BUY THIS!!

S2C2Xd9KOy6/10/2015, 10:29:12 PM2 votes

This is awesome, but has Riot ever actually taken a champion concept from the forums and used it?

Jacodaify6/10/2015, 8:54:07 PM2 votes

I am so confused about how this got so many views to quickly xD The concept is nice but kinda reminded me of kennen with his auto attacks creating static

Petiovski6/10/2015, 8:58:37 PM2 votes

Man why has it become a thing to give new champs secondary passives on their W nowadays o.O.

Otherwise cool concept smells like tons of damage

MacDthree6/10/2015, 9:00:16 PM2 votes

am I missing the "make it rain in my backyard and not my front" joke.
My 21 year old brain is seemingly 12 here.... because I either missed something completely, or am so mildly immature that this seems sexual.

Whoops.

Samflash36/10/2015, 8:33:16 PM2 votes

What is a "prodigal storm" ?

Rito Jericho6/11/2015, 3:13:38 AM1 votes

Okay. This is a pretty cool concept. There is just ONE thing that's bugging me, and it doesn't have anything to do with Tahra's kit: Despite NEITHER of them having been created for the League yet, why can't I shake the feeling that Tahra would have some great interactions with my own champion concept Xeno, the Accursed? I'm finding it both enjoyable and annoying that I'm trying to come up with interactions for our champions when neither of them have made it into the League at the moment.

Malicious Fury6/11/2015, 4:35:33 AM1 votes

Her E would make her fit League of Mobility. This concept might actually work.

C4KE6/11/2015, 5:57:56 AM1 votes

Rito plz!

Shuriken Flip6/11/2015, 6:15:03 AM1 votes

Where is Helmet Bro in the art?

Treyen6/11/2015, 10:27:04 AM1 votes

i shall call her lightning slut

Chicken4dinner6/11/2015, 10:45:22 AM1 votes

Many of her abilities do not fit thematically in the way you said they would. Lightning is fast, dangerous and unpredictable (for your enemies) however she instead is a good initiator and someone who sits on the outside of a fight trying to poke down fighters like yas (who have no counters to her non projectile range) waiting for your ultimate which then you bounce around until someone stops you or you kill everyone...

More importantly she doesn't have one fighting style like many other champions so deciding what to do with her is kind of hard (no escapes but an engage... poke heavy but again an all in engage, AP scaling on her auto attacks while it still scales to full AD... only dealing magic damage just means no one will play her AD.)

Try to have an idea, not for flavour reasons but to really suit the meta in some way ( I know you wanted an assault like mage but who are we kidding, this is like ap yasuo mixed with ekko and Evelyn. And I can assure you it will likely play out that way too)

Great job on the lore however, you will have a nice job opportunity with riot for work like that

owa93upyZG6/11/2015, 1:14:57 PM1 votes

I would play the crap out of this champion. Lux + Xin Zhao, yes please! Sounds like a good AP jungler/Mid laner that has a fairly simple kit. It has the classic LoL feel compared to a lot of the new champions off the line. I really hope they make it!

ChromeFluxx6/11/2015, 2:21:58 PM1 votes

Am i the only one that absolutely hates this o.O?

aljava6/11/2015, 2:55:13 PM1 votes

Taunt to tf maybe?

ActualPain6/11/2015, 3:23:29 PM1 votes

Definitely cool, I feel like she wouldn't quite be a bruiser in the sense that you mean it though. She seems really similar to Fiora in that you can build straight damage on her and just rush into fights and drop crazy damage while being all over the place (with Tahra's ult of course). Not that this is a bad thing, just the way I see the champion coming into play is a little different from the generic bruiser tops. More like a fighter-assassin role, like Fiora.

Kanzler6/11/2015, 6:04:23 PM1 votes

Did anyone else just think that she is AP yasuo?

Jabba Deez Huts6/11/2015, 7:40:54 PM1 votes

I like this, but the staff ult should be like victors

Dengeden6/11/2015, 7:48:07 PM1 votes

First and foremost, her quotes are ingenious. Kudos. (The champion select one confuses me a little though: Shouldn't "Harness what I have" and "Limits are a thing of the past" be 2 separate quotes?)

On her abilities, specifically her passive, the obvious risk of only ever using Residue on Q,W or E (even considering how her ult works) exists and I'm not quite sure if the proper base damage and ability scaling can fix that. This game can get awfully binary when it comes to what makes a champion good (and those that are good in too many scenarios get nerfed). Then again, I'm no game designer.

I'm not sure if you noticed but the way you worded her E turns it into an AA reset. (Unless I'm very much mistaken, anything with "[...] next AA [...]" does that, regardless of context.) I'm particularly interested wether its range would be enough to dash to jungle camps (or even dragon). Regrettably, we've more or less seen what there is to see when it comes to immobility. A skill shot, even any of Velkoz's, wouldn't work thematically. Some kind of speed boost would just be boring, even if you gave it synergy with her passive in addition to the AS boost.

All in all, I sort of expected her to do mixed damage (I guess it's all about that late game nowadays) but she looks solid, thank you for putting the time and effort into designing her.

Mister Support6/11/2015, 8:37:35 PM1 votes

Really like this concept! Could see her in the top lane and jungle (because of the W shield). Thing I'm wondering,

Question! If the E basic attack consumes a Residue, will it apply another one since it is a basic attack? And how will her passive reflect on towers, which take all damage as physical.

Routa6/10/2015, 8:45:12 PM1 votes

She's quite a bit like Lux to be honest.

Blazin J6/10/2015, 11:27:22 PM1 votes

This is freaking awesome. I hope Riot notices this, lots of work is put into this. Really nice job Blaquenwhyte. Only thing I don't like is her E, it's VERY similar to Ekko's.

AATTRROOXX6/11/2015, 12:05:25 AM1 votes

First off, well done this is an excellent champion with lots of detail and interesting abilities. I like the idea of having another lightning champion. I'm not so sure however, that her abilities fit with her description. You said, and I quote, "Tahra's fighting style is punctuated by brief periods of setup (charging, if you will) followed by unleashing a devastating series of attacks to finish off her foe." I was wondering if her abilities will have this form of counter play, and how that might affect her kit. That's the only complaint. (btw, she seems like a female combination of Ekko and Ezreal :D )

Occams Raiser6/11/2015, 12:58:30 AM1 votes

WELL DONE AND VERY THOROUGH! Too thorough. I need an abridged version.

KING OF MASKS6/11/2015, 1:55:10 AM1 votes

Ezreal is already the Prodigal Explorer. Unless she has some kind of explicit relation to him I think you should pick another, slightly more unique title.