[CHAMPION DESIGN] Sphen, the Penguin Knight

Saw a joke thread re: penguin champs, and wanted to try my hand. Here is Sphen, the Penguin Knight

ETYMOLOGY

Sphen is like Sven, a Scandinavian name, but it also references the taxonomic family to which penguins belong.

LORE

The League of Legends plays host to literal gods, which makes many people wonder how the more mundane champions stay in the fight. Few champions are wondered about more than Sphen - and few champions are more determined to prove their doubters wrong. Hailing from the frosty northern tip of Ionia, the Penguin tribes have long maintained cordial relationships with the other islanders. However, their small stature and cute appearance often caused even the peaceful Ionian people to see them as fodder for bullying, disrespect, or conquest. When the Noxians invaded, the brilliant General Swain was sent to plunder the Penguin tribes for secrets, magic, and land. The Penguin general was thoroughly outmaneuvered by Swain, but years of being trained and underestimated gave Sphen all the tool he needed. Ignoring Swain's maneuvers, he marched alone towards Noxus's massive and well-armed main force. Dozens of soldiers moved up to stop him, and just as many were cut down. Seeing the simple lives of the Penguin tribes, and Sphen's incredible lethality, Swain decided that this conquest was too costly and pulled back. Even though General Swain has since gained magical abilities, taken control of Noxus, and removed Noxian presence in Ionia, Sphen went to the League of Legends because he knows the truth: empires always come back to conquest and murder eventually. The Penguin tribes will have their Champion when that happens.

PASSIVE - Adorable Menace: After taking 50% of max HP in damage within 2 seconds, reflect 100% of damage and charm the source of the next non-DoT, non-Minion damage. Activating this passive resets the damage counter (i.e., taking 25% max HP damage per second for 3 seconds will only activate this passive once).

Q - Belly Slide: Slide up to 600 units in the target direction, stopping upon hitting an enemy. All enemies near the collision take 75/120/165/210/255 (+50% AP) magic damage and are slowed by 99% for 0.5/0.75/1/1.25/1.5 seconds. 15 second CD.

W - Flipper & Beak: Empower your next two autoattacks within 4 seconds. The first one is a Flipper Attack, dealing 5/6/7/8/9% (+2% per 100 AP) of the target's max health as bonus magic damage (capped vs monsters) and knocking them back 350 units. The second one is a Beak Attack, dealing 40/70/100/130/160 (+50% AP) as bonus magic damage. 14/13/12/11/10 sec CD.

E - Rock & Squawk: Each time you rank up this skill, you give a Pebble to the nearest allied champion without one. When Pebble-carrying champions are nearby you, they gain 5/7/9/11/15 adaptive penetration and you gain 6 magic penetration (max 24 magic penetration when all allies are Pebbled and nearby). Upon use, deal 60/100/140/180/220 (+60% AP) magic damage to all enemies within 500 radius. 12/11/10/9/8 sec CD.

ULTIMATE - Aquatic Predator: Passively, you gain 20/35/50 bonus movement speed in the river. Activate this deal 200/350/500 (+70/80/90% AP) to a single enemy champion within 250 range, gaining 20/30/40% movespeed and Ghosting for 3 second if they are slain. 90/80/70 sec CD.

DESIGN NOTES

This is my effort at doing a few things at once: creating a fun/thematic penguin champion, designing an "old-school" champ that can keep up with modern ones, and making a viable short-range damage mage. The second and third points create a particular challenge when combined, since the most obvious answer to help a short-range squishy damage dealer is mobility. However, the League of Dashes is exactly what an old-school design is trying to avoid.

Instead, I gave a number of tools which can be combined with good fight selection to keep Sphen safe. Since a short-range damage mage is, in many senses, just an inferior assassin, Adorable Menace prevents true assassins from blowing Sphen up when he tries to do anything. He's still very vulnerable to CC, sustained damage, kiting, or any number of other things - but just dealing a ton of damage all at once won't do the trick. Flipper Attack is a weak piece of self-peel, but it's only intended to give you a couple of seconds without a tank on top of you. That allows you to mirk a poorly positioned squishy leaning on a CC bot to protect them. Finally, Aquatic Predator's post-kill buff allows you to escape or chase after laying down your "assassin burst", so you can focus on your mage role.

My conception of Sphen is that he has two "modes" at once - assassin and mage. Rock & Squawk defines your mage role, since you frequently deal big magic damage in a large AoE, and your very presence boosts team damage output significantly. Flipper & Beak and Aquatic Predator define your assassin role, not giving you a lot of ranged or gap-closing tools but allowing you to deal a lot of damage if THEY position poorly. Belly Slide and Adorable Menace are basically just flexible tools to keep up in the modern LoL landscape. Other abilities I considered were using a sled to dash, eating a minion like a fish to heal, or having the passive on Aquatic Predator be more powerful and making it his actual passive ("Waterproof Feathers" or some such).

Feedback appreciated :)