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[Champion Concept] Nu'Lis, Assimilating Swarm

ModEchoing·9/1/2014, 10:15:10 PM·3 votes·3,972 views

Entry for the September Champion Concept Contest, because that stuff is cool.

Appearance: A swarm of tiny black bugs surrounding a large dark-blue wasp. The wings are a deep blue. The abdomen is lined with black stripes and has holes that seem to generate more of the swarm surrounding Nu'Lis. Her eyes glow blue, and her head has two antennae almost as long as her entire body is lengthwise, drooping down in front of her. She autoattacks by firing a stinger, which regrows shortly afterwards.

Lore: Nu'Lis was the result of a botched summoning spell by a group of renegade summoners in the Kumungu Jungle. Freed from the emptiness of the Void, Nu'Lis saw before her a veritable bounty of wonderful things to assimilate. She first started with the summoners before moving on indiscriminately, her swarm infesting then converting all living matter into more of the black insects that surrounded her. Before any of the authorities could react, Nu'Lis had destroyed a small town in this manner.

First discovered by Teemo, Nu'Lis quickly gathered the attention of Bandle City's commandos. With Teemo and Tristana leading the attack, the commandos descended upon Nu'Lis, opening fire with a deadly volley of darts and cannonballs. Surprised at the sudden resistance and injured in the initial attack, Nu'Lis quickly retreated, but not before killing and assimilating one of the commandos. With Kumungu as a base of operations, Nu'Lis assimilates more and more of the jungle in preparation for making the world a part of her.

"Yours? No. There is only ours."

Base Stats (at level 0, much like the wiki: add the level-up value once for level 1 stats)

Health: 360 (+81 per level) Mana: 225 (+50 per level) Health Regen: 4.7 (+0.4) Mana Regen: 8.0 (+0.6) Range: 500 Attack Damage: 49 (+2.8) Attack Speed: 0.625 (+1.68%) Armor: 15.4 (+3.9) Magic Resistance: 30 Move Speed: 325

Abilities:

Passive: Infestation - Nu'Lis's basic attacks Infest enemies for 4 seconds. When a champion other than Nu'Lis hits an Infested target, it emits a wave of bugs within a 200 radius, dealing (10 + 5/level + 0.1 AP) magic damage to all enemies in that radius. (Kills caused by this damage are credited to the person triggering the damage.) An Infested target can only trigger the burst once per infestation.

Q: Assimilate - Copies target champion's Q ability for a single use. Assimilate treats the ability as if it were the same level as Assimilate. Mana Cost: 90/100/110/120/130 Range: 800 Cooldown: 14/12/10/8/6 after using the ability copied.

W: Advancing Swarm - Fires a wave of insects forward, Infesting everyone, friend or foe, struck by the wave. Enemies take magic damage as well. Mana Cost: 65/70/75/80/85 Damage: 60/95/130/165/200 (+0.4 AP) Wave Width: 100 Wave Speed: 1000 Range: 800 Cooldown: 9/8.5/8/7.5/7

E: Cloud of Insects - Creates an area swarming with insects, dealing magic damage over time to all enemies in the area for 3 seconds. Infested enemies are worn down by the insects, gaining a stacking debuff to movement and attack speed. Moving around outside of the cloud removes the debuff faster. (Twice as fast, in fact.) Mana Cost: 80/85/90/95/100 Total Damage: 90/140/190/240/290 (+0.6 AP) Movement Speed Debuff: 5%/6%/7%/8%/9% per stack Attack Speed Debuff: 2.5%/3%/3.5%/4%/4.5% per stack Debuff Duration: 3 seconds Radius: 350 Range: 650 Cooldown: 16/15/14/13/12

R: Dominance - Immediately asserts control over all Infested enemies, triggering the passive, dealing magic damage, and lowering Attack Damage, AP, Attack Speed, Armor, Movement Speed, and Magic Resistance. Mana Cost: 100/125/150 Damage: 175/275/375 (+0.5 AP) Stat Debuff: 20/30/40 (+0.02 AP) Debuff Duration: 3 seconds Range: 600 Cooldown: 120/110/100

Doom Bot Bonuses: Advancing Swarm now fires three lines of insects. Allies are automatically Infested when nearby Nu'Lis, and trigger the explosion every 4 seconds. Infested enemies are contagious and spread Infested if they wander within 200 units of the Infested. (It's in line with the original doom bot concept without being completely overbearing.)

Summary: Nu'Lis is a very offensive support/mage that excels at creating pressure on the enemy. While she can do modest damage by herself, she truly shines with an ally to support due to her passive and relatively short range. Her Q opens up a wide variety of strategies based on both ally and enemy team composition - you can add additional crowd control by copying your allied Xin Zhao's Three Talon Strike, pull enemies out of position by copying their Blitzcrank's Rocket Grab, attempt to bail out of a fight with Jax's Leap Strike, help set up other allies with marking abilities like Katarina, Akali, and LeBlanc, and so on.

In the lane, she is a fairly risky support due to her short range, offset by the large poke she provides. Tagging enemies with Infested sets up your carry for easier lasthitting or harder-hitting harass, and her E allows you to zone enemies and flip a poorly-thought-out all-in on your foes. Her main weakness is the extreme mana cost of her Q, coupled with her range, putting her in danger very often without careful positioning and conservation of spells. Lack of escape and no way to shield or heal her lane partner means that long-range poke or frequent ganks will wear down or eliminate Nu'Lis and her partner.

In teamfights, Nu'Lis may not be able to initiate a fight, but she can help secure the fight with Dominance, rendering any stricken enemy highly vulnerable. Her W-E combo is excellent for following up on an initiate, while her Q can copy a vital spell whenever necessary.

Recommended Items:

Starting Items: Spellthief's Edge, Health Potion 2x, Warding Totem

Essential Items: Ionian Boots of Lucidity, Chalice of Harmony, Sightstone

Offensive Items: Twin Shadows, Athene's Unholy Grail, Rabadon's Deathcap

Defensive Items: Abyssal Scepter, Locket of the Iron Solari, Banshee's Veil

Skins: Fairy Queen Nu'Lis - Swaps the blue for pink, the black insects for white wisps, and adds a crown. Battlecast Nu'Lis - Becomes mechanical, with the trademark gray-and-red color scheme. Black insects become gray nanobots. Copied spells project a hologram of the original champion.

FAQ: Q: Wait, allies can be Infested? A: Yup, but only with her W, as you can't deny in this game. Naturally, they take no damage from either the W or the triggered explosion.

Q: So who gets the kill? A: Always the ally in that case, either from triggering the explosion on the enemy or having their own explosion triggered.

Q: What happens if you copy Draven's Spinning Axe? A: It launches an axe, as you'd expect, and bounces on impact. Nu'Lis does not actually have Spinning Axe, though, and can't catch it. Doesn't mean a Draven can't catch it, though!

Q: Okay, what about copying Syndra? A: It follows all the normal interactions for Syndra's orbs, much like what happened in One For All.

Q: On hits? A: As you'd expect. This makes stuff like Three Talon Strike interesting, to say the least. Can't imagine you'd copy a whole bunch unless you're really ADC Nu'Lis.

Q: ADC Nu'Lis? A: Theoretically possible, but not really a great idea. You'd need someone with an awesome Q to stay with you at all times.

Q: If the cooldown on her Q is 6 seconds, does that mean she can spam spells faster than the owner? A: Nope. Copying the same spell means you get the cooldown it had when you used it. If it's 8 seconds, and you copy it, then copy it again ASAP, you get a 2 second wait.

Comments and feedback welcome. I do bite, though, be careful.

11 Comments

Malitof9/2/2014, 4:04:46 AM1 votes

q should allow shorter cooldown due to having to get close to someone else to even use it

Fahrside9/2/2014, 11:46:44 PM1 votes

Why have his Q only copy Q's? Why not the last non ultimate ability an enemy used? Just curious. Would seem more useful then, although admittedly more powerful...

All in all I am a fan of implementing rubrik's key ability into LoL.

Although your R seems to contain waaaay too much invisible power for my tastes. They recently reworked Sona's because they thought all of her buff auras were relatively boring, can you convince me that a spell which is basically just a giant team debuff is actually interesting from a design standpoint?

dialMARK4acti0n9/3/2014, 2:19:44 PM1 votes

Really, REALLY interesting champion! Some interesting mechanics to see here.

Just so you can't figure out a way to do Azir's Q copied ability work, I have a suggestion: That Q controls Azir's own soldiers. Just popped up im my head ;)

gameipedia9/3/2014, 6:56:43 PM1 votes

I want this so bad

Destínum9/4/2014, 7:06:20 AM1 votes

I don't mind a copycat ability, but for a concept like this it feels very wierd thematically. I know she can kind of "create" things with her bugs, but I just don't understand how she's supposed to physically do things like Leapstrike or place a Heimer turret without it looking really derpy.

Qinmeartha5/22/2016, 9:01:19 PM1 votes

Looks awesome, but to be honest, her Q seems a little out of place with the rest of her kit. There's so much potential for her Q if you apply her lore to it, where she assimilates her enemies. What if her Q was a stacking ability? Kind of like Veigar's old Q before the mage update. Every time Nu'Lis kills an enemy (champs, jungle monster and minions), she gets a bug (amount never changes, even when killing enemy champs with Q). The bugs collected could give her other abilities and/or stats minor buffs (like in damage, debuff duration, or in reduced cooldowns.[something like that]). Your current Assimilate... It has too many problems with it. For starters, if it's only copying the targeted champ's Q, there's always a chance that it won't be as beneficial as other champs' Q's, especially if she's going to be run as a support, very limited pool to draw from. There's also the problem of if Nu'Lis copies the Q of, for example, Azir. His Q only works if he has his solders and if you copy that, it's pretty much useless and you're stuck with it for the entire game (unless the ability resets after a short duration) or Orianna who's Q is only really effective because of the ball. The same goes for other champs as well that need to meet a certain requirement to use some of their abilites, or are abilties that in no way help her, like toggle abilities like Singed's poison trail. It's one and done for that abilty. Plus, if you use your Q on the enemy support, there is a chance that it won't be that effective because, again, you need to meet certain requirements to use that ability to its full potential. And Double cooldowns? Not only does that make her current Q near useless in the early game, it also runs the risk of being unusable when facing a champ with naturally long cooldowns. So right there, you're looking at a cooldown period of nearly 30 seconds at the most. Also, it would take too much time to give Nu'Lis the animations for every Q in the game, especially when there's nearly 130 champions in the game right now.

So like I said, I honestly see her Q being a stacking ability of some kind, collecting bugs with each kill on a minion, champ or jungle monster. (sorry this is so long winded)

Milodic Mellodi5/23/2016, 11:13:35 PM1 votes

Imagine what your team could do if you copied Nautilus' Q. Come gank and Q Naut, then Q opponent. Have Naut apply his passive on them, then he does Q when they try to escape and E to slow them. E to slow them even further in their escape, and hopefully your Bot Carry gets there in time to get the kill.