Rework Theory: Nocturne, The Eternal Nightmare
This is a theoretical rework researched and imagined by a single individual and as such may not have considered some of the factors and opinions that go into actually reworking a champion, so any constructive ideas or fact checking would be much appreciated. Additionally, I am the only one proofreading this so if anything I have written here does not make sense or could be worded better your help in those areas would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, and enjoy!
##Before delving into any rework we must first ask why. Why rework Nocturne?
While Nocturne certainly has started to see more competitive play, which is usually a good thing as it means a champion has become a viable pick in the current meta, it is not in this case as the recent changes that he has received have resulted in him being nearly 100% pick-ban during the LCS Summer split, with an overall toxic playstyle primarily resulting from the increased duration to the global near sight effect from his ultimate and the increase to the burst damage of his ultimate resulting in too little outplay potential for the amount of skill that it takes to now assassinate a target.
ie. Can assassinate a squishy target with just an R + Q + auto combo at 2 items.
Additional Nocturne has always been stuck between two playstyles, a burst assassin, which hasn’t really been too relevant until recently since he does not have enough abilities which deal instant burst damage, and a squishy auto attack fighter that kind of just acts as a split pusher with quick access to team fights through his ultimate throughout the mid and late game.
Now that we have covered why Nocturne needs a rework, let’s being to look at his lore and history.
#Lore
"A demonic amalgamation drawn from the nightmares that haunt every sentient mind, the thing known as Nocturne has become a primordial force of pure evil. It is liquidly chaotic in aspect, a faceless shadow with cold eyes and armed with wicked-looking blades. After freeing itself from the spirit realm, Nocturne descended upon the waking world, to feed upon the kind of terror that can only thrive in true darkness."
Before Nocturne, people believed that dreams were figments of their imagination, meaningless images that flashed through the mind when one slept. This belief was put to the test when a rash of sleep-related incidents started afflicting many throughout Runeterra. Some would wake up screaming, terrified and beyond consolation. Some could not fall asleep, slowly going mad as the nights ticked by. Some simply never woke up. Physicians were baffled until a nightmare-stricken man cried out a haunting name from his unconscious state, then stopped breathing. Magical energy arced from the man, and Nocturne appeared.
Nocturne did not take his introduction to this world kindly. He slaughtered everything he could find before mages were able to intervene and temporarily confine him. After a period of intense study, the mages divined that Nocturne hunted those in their sleep, attacking his victims where they were most powerless. This seemed to be his only purpose. The families of the victims demanded justice, but Nocturne’s jailers were concerned that death might only return the creature to the place from which it came, making him even more powerful. When a weary mage guarding him finally succumbed to sleep, Nocturne vanished into thin air. Scholars have no idea whether he truly came from the plane of dreams, or whether there are any more like him. Perhaps the most disturbing theory is that Nocturne is a person's nightmare come to life. If this is true, they wonder, who is the dreamer?
Now this is not all we know of Nocturne as his character is more deeply explored in the story "For Demacia" in which he is the main antagonist, however for the sake of time I will not be quoting it here, but will instead pick specific parts to talk about that I feel are the most important in defining Nocturne.
Now there are a few ideas that I would like to focus on, specifically, the fact that Nocturne is a demon, who freed himself from the spirit realm and gains strength by feeding on the fear of others. This is not the first time we have been introduced to demons as we know that Evelynn is a demonic embodiment of lust and Tahm Kench is the demonic embodiment of gluttony, both of which are sins of the original seven deadly sins. So what type of demon is Nocturne?
At first, my mind stuck with the idea of Nocturne as a demonic embodiment of wrath, due to the ruthless path of destruction he left in his wake upon entering the physical world and while this idea could still be true it does not work well with the fact that Nocturne draws power from the fear of others. Why would a demon of wrath draw strength from fear? Wouldn’t it make more sense for him to gain strength from people’s anger, hatred, or rage, all of which are primordial extensions of wrath? Also, why is Nocturne the only demon without a completely physical form? Is it because wrath is something that cannot be easily defined by a physical form, such as lust or gluttony, or is it for some other reason?
To try and get a better understanding of the kind of demon Nocturne could be I took a look at his current ability names and began researching possible congruencies. What I came across was links to fear both from his E Unspeakable Horror, which actually causes his target to flee in fear after its tether is maintained for a short while, and from his R Paranoia which is a thought process heavily influenced by fear. However, a link even more apparent between Nocturnes abilities was one to darkness and shadows. In Nocturnes passive, Umbra Blades, an umbra is the innermost and darkest part of a shadow, where the light source is completely blocked. An umbra is also a direct Latin translation of the word shadow. Additionally, in Nocturnes Q, Duskbringer, dusk occurs at the darkest stage of twilight, a stage that occurs after sunset, but before night, and in Nocturnes W, Shroud of Darkness, this idea of darkness as a tool is literally in its name and is even a concept in his R where Summoners Rift becomes shrouded in a cloak of darkness afflicting enemies with near sight for a short while.
So now I was left with just two words to research, darkness, and fear. I decided to start with darkness since it was present in so many of his abilities and was able to find both Biblical and Greek Mythological references to the word. In the Bible darkness existed before everything else, aside from God, in its own words Darkness simply was, so if Nocturne is, in fact, a demon of darkness that can use it as a weapon it is very possible that he is, in fact, the very first demon, an idea, and concept I found very fitting for his character. In the Greek texts, Darkness was born of Chaos along with Night, Day, and Ether. Chaos was the first thing to exist and was an unformed mass, a shapeless heap, somewhat similar to Nocturnes current physical form and the description presented back in his biography as “liquidly chaotic in aspect”. Now while all of this new information was very interesting and helpful it did not really give me all that I was looking for and so my research into the origins of fear began and it was here that I finally found the connection I was looking for.
In Greek Mythology the God Phobos, Phobos meaning fear, was the personification of fear and the twin brother of Deimos, the personification of terror, two concepts ever so present in Nocturnes theme. The most interesting fact about the brothers though is that they were most often represented as young boys, an interesting fact because the first time we ever meet Nocturne is in the story “For Demacia” where he is possessing the body of a young boy.
So from all of this, I am going to surmise that Nocturne is the demonic embodiment of fear and was born from darkness, the possible original demon, or is, in fact, himself the first demon. A far-fetched idea yes, but one that could be really interesting.
Now while all this theory crafting can be good fun we cannot overlook the fact that Nocturne shares many of the same characteristics and abilities of a wrath and is even listed as a wrath on the League of Legends Wiki. Below are just some of the similarities.
- A wrath has the ability to control the mind of one person at a time.
- A wrath has the ability to cast illusions indiscernible from reality.
- A wrath can induce mental pain in others equivalent to physical pain.
- A wraith is an incorporeal creature born of evil and darkness, despising light and all living things.
- A wraith drains the constitution from living creatures.
However, since traditionally wraths are born from the death of a corrupted man, or from the death of another wraths victim it is unlikely that Nocturne is just a mere wrath as Riot likes for their champs to be unique and allowing for more wraths to be created similar to Nocturne would limit his uniqueness and identify in the League Universe. He could be the “King” of wraths I guess, but I still find this possibility too unlikely to legitimately consider it.
#History
For this section, I have made some charts to show changes he has undergone since his release, but before I touch on those let’s look at some important changes he underwent that could not be represented by a numerical value.
In patch 4.2 a change was made to reduce the movement speed of feared targets fleeing from Nocturne and then in the next patch, it was introduced that Nocturne would passively gain bonus move speed toward feared enemies affected by his E. These two changes would greatly improve his ability to stick to targets marked for assassination.
##Note: The values that align with a patch are the values of that stat prior to the patch and not the change made in that patch.
https://i.imgur.com/MUD9CSF.jpg
This first chart shows the changes made to Nocturnes base stats and as you can see there is not much going on here. There are a couple of small changes made to his base armor and one singular change made to his base attack damage as a result of the Runes Reforged patch, but the only change to Nocturnes stats that resulted in anything significant was the movement speed buff he received all the way back in patch 1.0.0.152. In this patch, his movement speed was changed from 320 to 345, which is a much more common movement speed for assassin champs and a very important change in enabling him to maintain his tether and in moving around the map.
##Passive: Umbra Blades
https://i.imgur.com/9fAFYSb.jpg
This ability is Nocturnes only source of sustain, which is a very important trait for squishier jungle champs, however, Nocturne has one of the weakest sustains out of all junglers. With an initial flat heal of only 15 health per target hit every 10 seconds the most he could heal was 90 off of raptors. Later on, this heal was even nerfed with a reduction to its base healing per target and even though they would later add a heal equal to 15% of his AP ratio Nocturne does not build AP traditional since he is primarily an AD assassin. It was not until recently that Nocturne got a major buff to his passive. In patch 8.07 the base healing per target was increased back to an initial amount of 15, but this value would now increase on a per level instead of just at levels 7 and 13. It would also max out at 40, a much greater value in comparison to its old max value of only 26. One more small change in this patch was that Nocturnes passive cooldown would now be reduced by 2 seconds per hit on a champion instead of just 1 second per auto attack on any target. This change greatly increased Nocturnes ability to sustain in drawn-out fights against enemy champions, not really something you need as an assassin, but it definitely works to fill his secondary role as a fighter.
##Q: Duskbringer
https://i.imgur.com/eiRZZuY.jpg
This ability shoots a ranged projectile that deals damage in a straight line similar to a Zed Q, however, Nocturne leaves a trail which follows any champion hit by the ability and while on the trail Nocturne gains bonus movement speed, attack damage, and the ability to move through targets. This is by far Nocturnes most balanced and versatile ability which is probably the reason for it to never receive any significant changes.
##W: Shroud of Darkness
https://i.imgur.com/8Cwl5BX.jpg
This ability grants Nocturne a passive increase to his attack speed and on activation of a spell shield that will block the first enemy ability that hits him and double the passive bonus when successfully blocked. The ability can be useful in one-on-one fights, as it can negate a least one enemy spell and give Nocturne a massive attack speed bonus, but it is pretty much useless otherwise as the situations in which it actually saves you do not present themselves all that frequently, especially in the early game where Nocturne is primarily in the jungle farming to hit level 6 so that he can unlock his primary source of engage, in his ultimate.
##E: Unspeakable Horror
https://i.imgur.com/GxOF4aZ.jpg
Now early on after Nocturnes release he received multiple nerfs to this ability, all of which were focused on decreasing the range in which he could activate the ability and the range in which the tether would remain attached to his target. While the decreased range would mean Nocturne would be close enough to his target to actually be able to follow up with auto attacks once triggered these nerfs definitely hurt his ability to trigger the fear. A couple of other significant changes made to this ability were: the large increase to its starting damage (in effect helping his early game damage), the addition of a movement speed boost when the fear is triggered allowing for better follow up damage from his auto attacks, and the small buff to the fear duration.
All of these buffs certainly did help Nocturne in winning one-on-one fights but did little to help his ability to actually assassinate targets, especially since this ability scales with AP instead of AD, Nocturnes primary source of damage. In addition, it deals its damage over the duration of the tether instead of in one quick burst, like most other abilities assassins have.
##R: Paranoia
https://i.imgur.com/7BgQsvq.jpg
Now Nocturnes ultimate has received a couple of small changes, so I am just going to highlight the ones that I feel are the most important. The first of which was the decrease in his ultimate’s cooldown from 3 minutes on first leveling it up to 2 and a half minutes allowing for him to have a bit more impact with his early game ults. The second important change was the one to increase the bonus AD ratio and base damage of the ability per level, greatly increasing Nocturnes assassination power. The last change I wanted to touch on was the 2-second increase to Nocturnes global near sight effect resulting in it to now last 6 seconds. This is a massive buff cause not only is Nocturne one of the only champions with this ability, the others being Graves and Quinn, but Nocturnes is a global status effect that cannot miss. The addition of these two extra seconds can make a huge difference in a team fight and it generally just leads to a toxic playstyle that no one wants to play against as is evident with the champs nearly 100% pick-ban in competitive play mentioned earlier.
However even with all of these recent changes making Nocturne a more reliable assassin he still fails to really fill this role. Firstly, much of his damage still comes from his auto attacks, a trait that does not really fit an assassin as it slows down their ability to burst down targets and his passive and W are no real help since they just further incentivize this auto attack playstyle. Secondly, Nocturne has only one way of engaging in team fights, his ultimate, and therefore is unable to skirt around team fights dealing semi-consistent damage and executing low health targets as all other assassins are able to. In addition, he also falls short in meeting many of the core qualities that Riot tries to ingrain into each of their champions.
##Is Nocturne satisfying to play?
No, outside of Nocturnes ultimate he feels very underwhelming as a champion.
##Does Nocturne have a resonant theme?
Yes and no, while much of Nocturnes lore and current abilities are based around this central idea of fear/darkness and its use as a weapon there are bits and pieces of it that feel disjointed from this and thus leave him not as complete a champion in the League of Legends universe as most others. This is an issue that could and most likely will be fixed with some small, but significant changes to his base lore when he does eventually receive an update.
##Is Nocturne skill-expressive?
No, aside from Nocturnes W and a bit of knowledge on how to use his abilities when taking jungle camps he has no definitive way of showcasing a player’s depth of knowledge in his abilities. This is largely a result of his shortcomings as an assassin mentioned earlier.
##Is Nocturne fair?
Yes and no, while Nocturnes ultimate is definitely an unfair ability in comparison to other champions, in large part due to the massive range in which it covers and the global near sight debuff that it inflicts on enemies, Nocturne is fair in the sense that all of his other abilities are very basic or just underpowered, however if Riot keeps deciding to buff his abilities this could very quickly change.
##Is Nocturne unique?
Yes, this is the only quality that I would give Nocturne full marks on as he feels like a champion unique to his own in the League of Legends universe. It is for these reasons that I believe the recent buffs are more of just a temporary fix while Riot addresses more pressing champion reworks such as the recent Nunu rework and the upcoming Morgana and Kayle rework.
#Rework
Rewrite the lore to give Nocturne a darker more interesting reasoning into how he came into existence while expanding upon his past and present actions and goals. In addition, I would like to get rid of his blades, but keep the sheaths in which he hides them and make them a type of shackle keeping Nocturne bound to the physical world as a way of minimizing the damage he is able to inflict on others. This visual change would serve mostly as a way of improving upon his existence as a character within the League of Legend universe because if we think about it Nocturne has no real reason to keep a physical form in which he can take damage. He has nothing to gain from it. He would be much more frightening as a shapeless demon that can invade others minds, take the form of what they fear the most, and disappear without a trace. In making this change, however, Nocturne would lose a key way of damaging his opponents so to balance this out Nocturne would to be able to control this new physical, but fluid form in a way that allows him to sharpen and focus it through the shackles (so that he can now inflict physical damage). If you are going to force me into a physical form so that I can feel pain then I will make you feel whatever physical pain I suffer tenfold. That is the kind of idea I am going with.
##Passive Nocturne heals for 80% of the damage he deals to feared enemies.
This ability gives Nocturne some very interesting synergy with other champions and allows him a better way of sustaining in the jungle.
##Q: Duskbringer Nocturne sends out a shadow blade in a line (Target radius: 1250) (Speed: 1800) that leaves a Dusk Trail on its path, dealing physical damage (85/120/155/190/225 (+75% bonus AP)) to enemies it passes through and causing enemy champions hit to also leave a Dusk Trail behind their movement for 5 seconds. While on the Dusk Trail, Nocturne has bonus movement speed (15/20/25/30/35%) and can move through targets. Cooldown: 10/9/8/7/6
Nocturnes Q was primarily left alone since it felt like the most balanced ability he had and honestly felt as integral to his kit as his ultimate.
##W: Unseen Terror Nocturne concentrates his fluid form through his shackles into two blades swiping forward in the target direction, dealing physical damage (65/95/125/155/185 (+60% bonus AP)) to all enemies in front of him and in a short line (Range: 175). If Nocturne activates the ability while on a Dusk Trail he will sink below its surface becoming untargetable, traveling and consuming the trail as he moves along it. On reactivation of the ability, Nocturne will resurface and lunge in a targeted direction dealing increased physical damage (x1.0 - x2.0) based on the distance traveled along the Dusk Trail. Cooldown: 8/7/6/5/4
Nocturnes W needed to change it to give him a more reliable way of engaging on a target while also allowing him to use it as a disengage tool if the need arose, however with an ability like this I did not want it to become too overpowered and all purposing. For these reasons I made it work in tandem with his Q.
##E: Unspeakable Horror Nocturne invades the mind of his target dealing magic damage (80/105/130/155/180 (+85% bonus AP)) over 1/1.25/1.5/1.75/2 seconds and causing the target to flee from his last position for the duration. Nocturne can only target enemies marked by Duskbringer. Nocturne takes physical damage for a percentage of the damage (16/14/12/10/8%) the target takes from sources other than Nocturne. Cooldown: 22/20/18/16/14
As for Nocturnes E, I was first thinking of modifying it to be like Kennen’s E except instead of doing damage he would inflict fear upon enemies he passed over while being intargetable during the abilities duration. After considering it, however, I felt this would give him a little too much of a safety net to engage/disengage without any real thought process so instead I decided to give him an ability similar to Kayn’s ultimate, which honestly feels more appropriate. The key differences though that allow for this variation of the ultimate to be balanced as a basic ability are that Nocturne can only target enemies marked by his Q and that Nocturne will take a small percentage of the damage the target takes from outside sources.
##R: Paranoia Nocturne applies a zone (Effect radius: 550/600/650) of near sight around his point of activation for 5 seconds dealing physical damage (100/150/200 +80% bonus AP) every second of the duration and reducing feared targets magic resistance (-5/10/15%) while in the zone. Cooldown: 150/120/90
Nocturnes ultimate is an ability that I wanted to leave untouched since it is a very unique and integral part of his current kit, (and an argument could still be made that it should stay unchanged) however if left alone I felt it would give him an unnecessary amount of dive potential within his reworked kit. I got the idea for the reworked ultimate from the story “For Demacia”, wherein it Garen and his party fight off a swarm of shadow-like creatures that can deal physical damage, but evaporate when hit.
I decided for the abilities to all scale based on Nocturnes AP ratio while dealing physical damage as a way to stay true to the concept of mental ailments causing physical harm, an idea that works well with many of Nocturnes core values as a champion.
##I hope you all enjoyed the critical analysis and rework. Please feel free to comment down below on your thoughts about the rework or any questions you might have. Thanks!
