Demura, Reflection of Demacia

Role: AP Support, AP Mage

Inspiration: Almost three years ago, a Rioter mentioned that there was an interest in creating a ricochet skillshot mechanic in League, but that no champions on the docket at the time could really take advantage of the feature. Demura was created specifically to showcase this still-unseen reflection mechanic.

General Design Philosophy: Demura is a utility-focused support with an emphasis on predicting enemy and allied movement patterns through the precise use of her unique ricocheting skillshots. She is fragile, complex and must manage multiple resources to be effective. This comes at the benefit of being able to dazzle audiences, inspire allies and terrify enemies. Demura is a flashy and mechanically deep champion that should appeal to support players who want to make plays like Zed.

Risk Analysis: High. From a gameplay perspective, Demura is visually inspired and provides near instant readability for her abilities. However, the technical difficulty of creating a kit this unique to League may prove overwhelming, and the complexities of her kit might be too niche for general audiences to enjoy and eventually master.

Appearance: A beautiful but timid-looking young woman, around the age of Lux. Her clothes are ornate and extravagant (much to her dismay). She has an air of sadness about her despite her beauty and grace.

Her name is a combination of several things- the obvious similarity to the word “mirror”, the alliteration with “Demacia”, and the playing off of the word, “Demure,” which means modest or shy.

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Lore: Demura was always perceived as beautiful by the Demacian people, even from an early age. They knew she was destined for greatness and, as a way to promote their nationalism, felt compelled to show the rest of Valaron what Demacia was capable of raising.

Demura, however, wanted nothing to do with any of this. She was a shy, timid girl that never saw anything all that special about herself. Constantly trying to avoid the spotlight but never being able to, Demura eventually found herself in an alley of Demacia, fleeing a parade in her honor. There she found a sorceress who spoke of a way for her to see what the people of Demacia saw in her. Demura, thinking this was a way to finally rid herself of her modesty, hastily agreed.

The sorceress, however, had other plans, and tricked Demura, placing a curse on her that created ethereal mirrors wherever Demura went. The curse forced her to see her own beauty at all times, serving as a constant reminder of her people’s obsession over vanity. Defeated and accursed, Demura succumbed to the pressure of the Demacian council, agreeing to enter the League as a testament to the beauty and grace of her people; showcasing the best that Demacia has to offer.

Strengths: Amazing sustain, ability to heal, can lower enemy damage output, high baseline damage output

Weaknesses: Disadvantaged in highly mobile fights, inconsistent short term healing and regeneration capabilities, no crowd control, terrible level 1

Plays Most Like...:

Auto Attack: Demura fires a long-range bolt from her hand that resembles a hexagonal glimmer of light reflecting off of water or other surface.

Note that Demura's E ability is listed first to more intuitively educate readers about her kit

http://i1298.photobucket.com/albums/ag47/Lutzburg/icons_15851_pas_zpsoapqbkbx.jpg E - Accursed Mirror (no cooldown): Demura summons a mirror at a target location, lasting 15 seconds. Demura creates and stores a mirror every 10/9/8/6.5/5 seconds, up to 4/5/6/7/8 able to be stored at one time. Mirrors cannot be targeted or damaged. Mirrors have a minimum separation distance which prevents them from being spammed in any one location. Mirrors reflect Demura’s beam abilities, potentially allowing their effects to stack multiple times before the beams expire. Once a beam travels from one mirror to the next, it will continue ricocheting in that manner until it expires. Beams can be reflected from terrain to a mirror and vice versa. When casting her Q or W, players will see the reflection path of their skillshot displayed to them in a manner similar to that of Lulu’s Glitterlance. As these mirrors are magical, they are reflective on all sides and do not need to be positioned or aimed at. Rank-ups decrease the charge time of mirrors and increases the cap that she can hold at a time, which subsequently increases the power of her Passive. Design Philosophy: This is Demura’s most iconic ability, and what her entire kit revolves around. A minimum separation distance prevents ridiculous stacking of heals/mana/etc. Since beams have a specific travel speed and last for 2 and 3 seconds respectively, this ensures that a beam can only ricochet roughly 5-6 times, even under the most ideal situations. Mirrors have no cooldown and regenerate quickly in order to give a player the ability to create ‘highways’ or ‘trade routes’ of beams quickly and strategically. Being able to destroy the mirrors would be interesting counterplay, but I imagine the anti-fun for Demura players to far surpass this. As a result, the mirrors are untargetable.

http://i1298.photobucket.com/albums/ag47/Lutzburg/icons_6861_btn_zps82arqskp.jpg Passive - Focal Acuity: Demura gains bonus mana regeneration for each mirror she has actively placed on the battlefield. This regeneration scales with level. Design Philosophy: Similarly to her Ultimate, her passive is designed to offer simple, reliable sustain. Demura is intended to be a somewhat spammy champion, and providing regeneration based on the number of active mirrors promotes aggressive play while simultaneously diminishing the value of stagnant, passive lane play.

http://i1298.photobucket.com/albums/ag47/Lutzburg/icons_15682_pas_zps4cqforyh.jpg Q - Lucidity Beam (5 seconds): Demura fires a beam that travels through targets and lasts for 2 seconds, infusing allies with mana and lowering their cooldowns by .5 seconds, or dealing magic damage to enemies. This ability can reflect 180 degrees off of mirrors and ricochet 90 degrees off of terrain. Lucidity Beam has no effect on Demura. Rank-ups increase damage and mana gain, as well as lower cooldown Design Philosophy: Even as a Support, players still need a consistent way to damage enemies, even if that damage output is nowhere near those of a Carry role. Making the ability a skillshot coincides with Demura’s kit, as aiming beams into mirror’s is her most iconic aspect.

http://i1298.photobucket.com/albums/ag47/Lutzburg/icons_15736_pas_zpssqsezlwv.jpg W - Ray of Light (7 seconds): Demura fires a beam that travels through targets and lasts for 3 seconds, healing allies or reducing an enemy’s damage output by 5%. If an enemy is struck 3 times by Ray of Light, they suffer magic damage. This ability can reflect 180 degrees off of mirrors and ricochet 90 degrees off of terrain. Rank-ups increase healing and damage done and lower cooldown. Design Philosophy: As a champion with no escapes or crowd control, Demura needs a way to sustain herself and her allies in a lane. Like her Q, this ability is a skillshot to help promote the key feature of her kit. The damage component was added to provide an incentive for players to aim her beams strategically, as well as grant her a little more damage presence.

http://i1298.photobucket.com/albums/ag47/Lutzburg/icons_2018_btn_zpskfuq0u1z.jpg R - Refraction (80 seconds): Demura screams and emits a fast-spreading ripple of light around herself at 1,500 range. This refracts all mirrors within range, dramatically increasing the travel speed of beams that reflect off of them. In addition, Demura enjoys 50% bonus cooldown reduction for the duration. This effect lasts 12 seconds. Rank-ups decrease cool down and increase percentage of effects bonus to 15%\25%\40% Design Philosophy: This is a simple Ultimate due in large part to the complexity of the rest of her kit. Managing skillshots and mirror placements provides enough challenge to players that Demura’s ultimate should be reliable and consistent. Increasing the travel speed of refracted beams allows them to conceivably ricochet off of more mirrors, stacking their effects beyond what could normally be done. This, combined with the bonus cooldown reduction, allows fast-fingered and accurate Demura players to orchestrate laser light shows during team fights.

Strategies and Gameplay Patterns: Demura players will typically want to place both themselves and an opponent between two mirrors, either horizontally or vertically. Firing a beam forward should cause it to hit an enemy, ricochet back behind an ally (healing or restoring mana) and then ricochet a second time to double the effects of both. Creating a network of several mirrors allows her drastically increased range on her abilities.

The key to Demura is maximizing the ricochets of her Q and W. A beam connecting only once with an intended target will provide very subpar effects. The power of these spells compounds for each successful reflection off of a mirror.

Additionally, the beams can travel off of terrain, including the walls surrounding the brush at bottom lane and even player-built terrain such as Trundle’s Pillar. Doing so will cause beams to arc perpendicularly to their angle of impact, allowing Demura players to sneakily reach enemies or adjacent mirrors.

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