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[Champion Concept] Tahra, the Prodigal Storm

Blaquenwhyte··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

geekman909711 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.

Blaquenwhyte4 votes

I might be pushing it with the "try and keep up" stuff. The idea was that, since lightning strikes at the speed of light, that she'd be striking faster than her opponents can perceive. Maybe I just watch too much anime (where "try and keep up" is pretty much a catchphrase), though.

I didn't rummage through any other champion quotes to avoid repeats, so I'm not entirely sure if another champion has it as well. To be frank though, because of the aforementioned "catchphrase" feel of the "try and keep up," I wouldn't be surprised if she's not alone in saying something like it.

Muensty1 votes

"and i'm reasonably sure another champion has it too."

One of Annie's movement quotes is "try to keep up."

Deshawn3 votes

{quoted}

"and i'm reasonably sure another champion has it too."

One of Annie's movement quotes is "try to keep up."

That's not exactly a big deal. Lots of champs share quotes anyways. In fact one of Annies movement quotes, "this way", is shared by 4 other champions (Eve, Irelia, Ezreal, and Thresh).

cEtaPhoBic2 votes

{quoted}

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.

I think Miss Fortune say that, not sure.

Tuna Unleashed7 votes

legendary

Odadrab1 votes

Worth. Always Worth.

Hadriel5 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.

Blaquenwhyte1 votes

I hear you. One of the problems that occurred to me while making the champion was how her scaling would work out. Too high and she does too much damage, but too low and she's sort of forced into being tankier because her ratios don't make building AP cost-effective. It's pretty difficult to balance a kit and envision what exactly its purpose is without dabbling into numbers, but once you add numbers there enters the entirely different problem of just number balancing. I'd rather get the concept across than drag it down with potentially overpowered ratios and scalings.

That said, the addition of Residue and how important it is within the context of her kit make the ratios far more interesting to balance. Perhaps her base spells don't scale very well, but her Residue bonuses do, which makes it important for her to stay in a fight to proc her Residue bonuses but also important for her to have a decent amount of AP to abuse the high ratios. This makes her Residue mechanic far more cost-oriented: you either build AP bruiser and sacrifice damage in favor of getting your higher-scaling Residue bonuses off, or you build straight AP assassin and deal the damage anyone would expect from an AP assassin assuming you can live long enough to do it, and more importantly, if you can escape.

Her kit has a lot of inherent trade-offs, it's just a matter of which trade-offs are more important than the others. As you said, if the W Residue scaling is too high, she's just going to use her shield every time due to how powerful it is. Again, these things are hard to predict without concrete numbers, but I was more interested in getting the general concept across than I was with balancing her exact statistics.

Hadriel1 votes

I don't think you understood; it doesn't matter how strong her shield is, she will always have to use it when she enters the fray as long as she is not built like a tank. Seeing as using the shield consumes all nearby passives and you can't simply forego using W unless you want to get bursted down, you generally won't be able to choose to use residue other than with shield in a teamfight if there are multiple targets within W range you'd want to use different residues on. You'll have to apply residue again with Q or train them with W to use the other residue interactions, so her passive usage would be a lot more limited than her kit suggests. (Which, in turn, might be necessary as a gating tool, as I can see her being absolutely overpowered. The Lich Bane + Nasho's Tooth synergy appears to be godly, like a melee old Kayle).

I definitely love your design, though, even if I see her having the same issues Diana has. AP bruisers are just not that good (I wish they were), so she'd be feast or famine in the ratio vs base damage (assassin vs tank) debate. Finding a middle ground would be ideal, but the Diana experiment says that's not possible OR requires part of a problematic kit to be pretty useless or watered down (in Diana's case, E+W shield).

I think you came up with something great. I imagine you dream of playing this champion, and, let me tell you, I do too. Riot buying your desing would be a dream.

Odadrab3 votes

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

Samflash32 votes

What is a "prodigal storm" ?

Blaquenwhyte1 votes

It's a rather abstract title, but "prodigal" in this sense means a person that leaves home and behaves recklessly then makes a repentant return (like how she leaves her school and ignores her teachers' warnings). She doesn't have a repentant return (her return is anything but repentant, actually), so I suppose I'm stretching the meaning of "prodigal" a bit.

As for "storm", it's just referring to her. She's a storm of ambition and she wants nothing more than to prove those who doubted her wrong, and it follows her theme of lightning, so double whammy.

Naming her abilities and whatnot was easily the most time-consuming part of making the champion because I value names and the flavor/thematic relevance they carry very highly. "Prodigal Storm" is a bit abstract, but after deliberating on it for a good half an hour and considering alternatives, I thought it was the best representation for what I was going for (that I could think of, anyway).

Joyeuse1 votes

That is not the definition of prodigal. Prodigal means wasteful spending or unnecessary extravagances.

Blaquenwhyte1 votes

See my debate here: http://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/39c668/my_attempt_at_a_champion_concept_tahra_the/cs28zag (click the picture, for some reason the Boards are displaying Tahra as a thumbnail. I'm creveruse, by the way).

It's a stretch, yeah, but when used in the sense that I'm using it (a la prodigal son) I think it works.

Jacodaify2 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

Blaquenwhyte1 votes

It linked to it through a reddit thread as well, and it's gotten quite a few views (I'd wager most of them, actually) from there. I'm glad to see people are enjoying it, though!

As for the relation to Kennen--she has an interaction with him, too. They're meant to be sort of similar because they both use lightning magic. Same with Volibear and his lightning-bolt auto attacks while he's ulting.

Jacodaify1 votes

Ahhh Yeah i just saw yours come up on reddit now xD I tried sharing mine or reddit but Ive never used it before and it didnt take off quiet aswell as yours did :c

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/skin-champion-concepts/4tOEPEE0-champion-concept-rogaz-the-bilgewater-hoarder Let me know what you thought! I also didnt know how to make the post itself into a link >.< could you help me out?

Blaquenwhyte1 votes

That's quite a cool concept, it reminds me a lot of Bard's meeps except they're central to Rogaz's kit. Considering meeps are probably my favorite part of playing Bard... it'd be a hell of a lot of fun to play a champion that essentially involves micromanaging a bunch of meeps. The major suggestion I'd make is to avoid numbers. I've heard Riot employees say that even on the rare occasions they look at champion concepts, they tend to avoid ones that have numbers. They clutter up the text of the concept and it's not for you to balance, anyway. Give the general idea of the skill and that's about it. Also, your post could do with some formatting to make it easier to read. Go check up on the Board Formatting 101 post (http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/miscellaneous/YHPBc6k3-board-formatting-101) to learn how to make your posts look pretty.

As for making your post on reddit a link post, it's pretty easy. Go to submit a post, and then at the top (right below the subreddit banner), there should be two options: link or text. Select "link" and paste whatever your link is into the URL box. Title it and submit, and voila, the post itself is now your link :)

Petiovski2 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

MacDthree2 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.

Blaquenwhyte2 votes

Ha! No, it's not immature. She's saying that because he's so small, the strongest storm he could conjure up would only cause rain in half of her yard. I've had such a storm around my house before, so I thought I'd make it into a joke. It's a bit subtle, but Tahra does indeed make a funny.

S2C2Xd9KOy2 votes

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

Blaquenwhyte2 votes

I'm not sure. It'd obviously be awesome if she became a champion, but I more made this for my own personal enjoyment and to see if anyone else enjoyed it.

ScabberDeath2 votes

I'm pretty sure Ekko was a concept from the forums. I'll see if I can find the post

Routa1 votes

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

MacDthree2 votes

"Mages are a bit like Mages to be honest"

Blazin J1 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.

Blaquenwhyte2 votes

Yeah, I was a bit confounded with getting her E down. I wanted to tie it to her W passive and give her a powerful gapcloser (that can also interact with her ult) that doesn't also double as a ridiculous escape, otherwise she'd be tanky, do damage, have assassination potential, and be able to get out of tricky situations, which is a bit much.

The simplest route was just to attach the skill to her auto attack like Ekko's (though without the dash), but you're right, not only is it a similar spell, it's also rather simple compared to what I think it could be. The problem is, as I said, it's really hard to nail a mobility spell without giving her too much mobility. I'd like to change it, or at least give it an added mechanic or two to make it more interesting, but I'm not sure what I'd do.

AATTRROOXX1 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 Raiser1 votes

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

KING OF MASKS1 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.

Blaquenwhyte1 votes

That's... wow. I think you're the first person to bring this up. Aside from "prodigal" perhaps not being the word I was looking for, it's also used in another person's title? Jeez, I had completely forgotten what Ezreal's title was.

In that case, I really should change it to something more like "the Wayward Storm." It's a bit late to change it now, but thanks for bringing that up, because I think you're the first person to realize there's a name problem.

KING OF MASKS1 votes

Not at all; titles are one of those things that are easy to forget unless you really main a champion, I think. "Wayward Storm" sounds pretty good, gives you a feel for her reckless nature (if you'll pardon the pun).

Incidentally, if you're still taking constructive criticism, I feel like you could make her background more concrete. A "school of magic in Runeterra" isn't very specific. I'd give the school a name, and maye even a location... maybe near Zaun? Tahra's attitude is pretty Zaunite, after all (or you could put the school somewhere else and have Tahra just be a student there who happens to be of Zaunite blood). Just spitballing.

Rito Jericho1 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 Fury1 votes

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

C4KE1 votes

Rito plz!

Shuriken Flip1 votes

Where is Helmet Bro in the art?

Treyen1 votes

i shall call her lightning slut

Chicken4dinner1 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

Blaquenwhyte1 votes

I think you're way overplaying the importance of harassment in her kit. She can poke, but she is by no means poke heavy. She has one spell that can do it, and it's better used to set up the other parts of her kit rather than get the DoT/MR shred. She's meant to be most powerful when she engages--she needs to auto attack to apply her W passive and utilize her actual passive, and most of the power from her E comes from the attack speed buff. Standing on the edge and harassing might be possible, but it's not making the most out of her kit.

I main Yasuo and you're right--he likes playing at the edge of fights until he gets his tornado and engages. But Tahra doesn't need to do that. She can easily E into a teamfight, ult, W to get a massive shield from all the Residue she applied, and then work on applying Residue to specific targets with her Q and W. If you want to compare it to AP Yasuo, then also realize AP Yasuo relies entirely on his dash and mobility rather than charging his Q on the edge of fights.

People keep comparing Tahra to Ekko, but frankly, I just don't see it. Ekko has a very back-and-forth playstyle; his passive, his E, and his ult all promote that. He likes going in, dealing damage, and quickly getting out before anyone can stop him. Tahra has no such luxury--one she goes in, she pretty much has to stay in unless she has some targets around for creative E usage. No part of Tahra promotes running in, killing someone, and getting out, because it's just not regularly feasible. Frankly, her kit screams "get in, stay in, deal tons of damage."

It's really easy to compare individual abilities to other champions' and say that the champion will play similarly, but in terms of playstyle, it's all about how her kit comes together. She's not as mobile as Yasuo or Ekko (except for certain circumstances involving her ult) and not as slippery as Evelynn. She's very all-in oriented because most of her power is tied to proccing her Residue off of skills like her E, and afterward, she lacks an escape so it's very important to use her W properly.

owa93upyZG1 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!

ChromeFluxx1 votes

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

aljava1 votes

Taunt to tf maybe?

ActualPain1 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.

Kanzler1 votes

Did anyone else just think that she is AP yasuo?

Blaquenwhyte1 votes

Someone said the same on Reddit, this was my response:

With a resource (mana), without the projectile-blocking wall, self-generating shield, half a second cooldown dash (outside of her ultimate) with an inherent cooldown that isn't tied to auto attacks, stacking series of strikes that CC and set up a suppression ultimate... yeah, I can't see how they're any different.

Are their abilities similar (especially their Q)? Perhaps. Aside from her various uses of Residue (which define her kit and are also something Yasuo doesn't have anything remotely similar to), their playstyle is different as well. Yasuo is mobile and slippery and likes to play at the edge of fights until he gets a good setup for his ultimate, whereas Tahra quite enjoys being in the thick of things to maximize her Residue application and ult coverage.

Jabba Deez Huts1 votes

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

Dengeden1 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 Support1 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.

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