[Champion Concept] Shwahla, The Submerged Queen

Shwahla, the submerged queen

Shwahla looks like a queen worm moving underground; slender, brown, moves like a worm. Above ground she uses the slime she secretes to move faster. Shwahla does not auto attack (much like Azir here) but when she auto attacks (800 auto attack range) she controls her Drones to attack.

Shwahla is designed as an ambush jungler, support, or top lane. Her sustain and ability to hide helps her excel at these positions.

Passive – Queen’s Army: Shwahla passively builds up drones. She gains 1 drone every 30 seconds (affected by cooldown reduction) to a cap of 7/8/9 (increase with points in Ambush).

Done’s appearance: When they spawn, they move underground around Shwahla. When she unburrows they stay underground. The drones are very similar to the caster minions. However, they look like Shwahla and their auto attack is a green slime they spit.

Q – (Starts with plus gets 1 point to spend) Burrow/Unburrow (2 cooldown at all levels. Unaffected by cooldown reduction): At the cost of (20/25/35/45/55) mana/second, Shwahla can go underground completely becoming invisible (detecting Shwahla forces her to unburrow and places the cooldown of reburrowing to 4 seconds rather than 2). While underground she can use her abilities. While above ground her abilities are inactive but she moves (15/25/30/35/40)% faster.

Q’s look: Very similar to Rek Sai but when underground she doesn’t land shark (stick out).

W – Command Drone (5/4/3/2 cooldown): Shwahla spawns a worker within 100 range of her to attack for (7 + (1 additional second per 50 additional health regen/5) seconds. Workers prioritize whomever Shwahla would auto attack and have 250 range however they cannot attack vision wards (Vision wards are made out of spit proof material?). Drone’s life are determined by 7/8/9/10% Shwahla’s max health and their damage is determined by mana regen (10 + 1 magic damage per 5 additional mana regen/5). Drones cannot apply auto attack on hit but apply spell effects.

W’s look: Shwahla shoots a Drone from her tail above ground to start attacking.

E – Underground Grasp (16/15/13/11 cooldown): Shwahla will have workers grab enemy champions from the ground (300 radius from Shwahla), rooting them for (2 seconds at all ranks + (.1 of additional health regen/5)) and dealing damage over the time (20/35/45/60 per .5 + (.5 of additional mana regen/5)). It takes 2 available drones to root a random enemy champion in the range. The drones have 2 hit points during the time. An enemy champion not affected by Underground Grasp can attack the drones to kill them reducing the damage and time of the root. Any drones still alive will return to Shwahla.

E’s look: The Drones will come out of the ground and hold the enemy. While holding the enemy they are biting at the enemy.

R – Ambush (120/100/80 cooldown): Shwahla spawns all available Drones (100 cast range) at their max attack range around an enemy champion to attack whomever Shwahla commands. The drones gain (30/40/50 + (1 for every 20 additional health regen))% attack speed and (30/40/50 + (1 for every 30 additional mana regen))% move speed while focusing that enemy Ambush was cast on. If any enemy champion dies to Ambush they lose the speed boosts and Shwahla will have 1 second to recall them to her. If she does not, they finish out their time spawned.

R’s look: They appear evenly apart from each other at 250 range from the champion and attack them.

A few interesting things that Shwahla has in her kit:

Shwahla is great at scoping around the map as she sees normally but is unseen. This may seem strong but there are ways to balance this. First of all, Shwahla cannot attack vision wards. This means she needs to avoid them. If she runs into one, she becomes unburrowed, stopping her abilities. Also, Rek Sai is a huge counter to Shwahla. He can see her movement and when he gets in vision range of her, he pops her up. Take a scanner into battle and keep high vision wards and she will have limited movement.

Watching where Drone’s are being spawned is a great way to see where she generally is.

Advantages of Shwahla are that she has some very unique options that when mastered can really turn matches. Catching an enemy champion with Underground Grasp and unloading the rest of the drones with Ambush can deal massive damage to a squishy carry.

The unique scaling of health regen and mana regen focus on Shwahla staying underground longer, healing more while unseen, and increasing the damage of her army.

In team fights, using Drones to wall off escaped or to take the blunt of skillshots can drastically reduce the damage a team takes.

If Shwahla has all her drones available, looking for a team fight is wise. A well timed Underground gasp will leave only one person to attack Drones. The rest of the team is only rooted, so they can attack, but they cannot attack Drones. This will leave lots of them to come back to Shwahla for spawning or a good ambush.