(Champion idea) Tama'Re, the Empress of the Void

Myrkrvaldyr·4/16/2017, 4:00:57 AM·2 votes·326 views

I was thinking about the void and how we have few champions from there, perhaps we should finally get the ruler of that place, perhaps an empress and call her Tama'Re or something (tama meaning darkness in Sanskrit and rekhaka meaning ruler), as for her design what sprang to mind was a creature similar to a Xenomorph, can't get that design out of my head.

What I have in mind is a mix between Elise and Lee Sin. A champion that doesn't have an ultimate per se, her ult would switch stances, one stance has mana, the other one doesn't. Her primary stance would wield a scythe, during that stance she's tankier and has increased armor and MR, when she switches stances, her weapon changes to a kusarigama, her armor and MR decrease, in this stance she's more agile, moving faster but being squishier.

She's a champion that is meant to be highly mechanical and complex (possibly the hardest one in the game), her max damage is built around pulling off the combos but if she doesn't pull them off she's not completely useless but won't deal as much damage. She deals AP and AD, while pulling off a full combo deals true damage instead, she should be top and jungle.

Passive: Tama'Re gets dark orbs that allow her to unleash her full potential, granting her additional effects or abilities when fully charged Every basic attack or ability creates half an orb when attacking minions and epic monsters, and a full orb when attacking a champion At 5 orbs she unleashes her true power. The 5 orbs stay until she gets hit 5 times by enemy champion's attacks or uses no abilities for 11 seconds.

During her primary stance her armor and MR are increased, attacks hit a bit harder but are slower. During her secondary stance, she's squishier, her attacks are weaker but hit faster.

Ultimate: Active: Switches stances, primary stance: Scythe wielder, secondary stance: kusarigama user. Unlocks at level 3 but combos are unavailable until level 6.

Q: In her primary stance she uses her scythe to deal damage around her in a circle (similar to Darius) dealing physical damage. With 5 dark orbs she does the same thing (hitting harder) but can now throw the scythe like Gnar's boomerang, if it hits a champion a small cross-shaped explosion is created slightly knocking them back and dealing magic damage.

In her secondary stance she uses her kusarigama to sweep in front of her (mid-range) (think of the Street Sweeper upgrade in Prototype for the whipfist weapon) dealing physical damage. This ability only deals damage if the blade hits you, so you can avoid getting hit by being directly in front of her. With 5 dark orbs her kusarigama grabs a champion by the neck, swings them around throwing them far away, stunning them and any champion they hit for 0.5 seconds, if the champion hits terrain they get stunned for 0.5 seconds, if they hit nothing they get slowed for 1.5 second instead. This ability can also grab wards, both yours and the enemy's and toss them away. Tossing yours will just move them and grant you vision where they land, tossing an enemy's destroys them.

Primary stance combo initiator Q > E > 5 orbs > Q > E (Pulling off this combo deals true damage and slows down the target for 2 seconds)

Secondary stance combo initiator Q > 5 orbs > E > switch to primary stance mid air > E (Deals true damage, she finishes the combo by descending down like a meteor spinning her scythe silencing the enemy for 1 second, think of DmC3 Vergil's Beowulf basic combo, you're like Sonic, spinning)

W:

In her primary stance she can parry any attack and cc for 0.4 second (or shorter than that, the point is proper timing, not Fiora's parry safety). If she has 5 orbs parrying will make her roar, knocking all enemies around her back and slowing them for 2 seconds. If she has 5 orbs and parries a dragon's attack the roar will make it flee in fear for 2 seconds, Baron will be intimidated and won't attack for 3 seconds (she's the empress of the void after all! Baron for her is just a more aggressive version of the 'cute' Kog'Maw).

In her secondary stance, she throws her kusarigama at the enemy, if it lands and she presses W again she pulls them toward her unless they're rooted, if she presses Q she pulls herself toward them instead. She's able to pull herself toward wards and monsters, too (similar to lee's Q). With 5 orbs she's able to parry any attack and cc for 0.4 second (again, the point is timing) in a circle around her using her weapon, if the parried attack is CC she'll throw the cc back at the enemy applying the same effect with half the duration (Meaning, if the enemy's stun is 2 seconds she bounces the cc back and stuns them for 1 sec).

Primary stance combo initiator W > Q > 5 orbs > E (massive true damage) Secondary stance combo initiator W > switch stance > Q > switch back > E > 5 orbs > E (massive aoe true damage when the enemy lands)

E:

In her primary stance she hits the enemy 3 times, the final hit has her jump (like Darius' ult) and silences the enemy for 0.3 second while also dealing physical damage. With 5 orbs she swings her scythe 4 times, her attacks get some range in form of a cone and the last hit reduces an enemy's defenses for 50% for 2.5 seconds.

In her secondary stance she grabs the enemy by the neck, pulls them towards her and kicks them up throwing them in the air dealing magic damage, the enemy also takes damage when landing. With 5 orbs she jumps (like Xayah's ult), can grab up to 2 enemies by the neck and throws them back to the ground right below her, she then aggressively lands on them dealing aoe magic damage.

Primary stance combo initiator E > Q > 5 orbs > W (true damage and stuns for 2 seconds) Secondary stance combo initiator 5 orbs > E > W > Q > switch stance > E > Q (true damage and silences for 1.5 second)

Of course there should be tons of tweaks to do. Full combos would have their own animations, they're new attacks if you pull them off, this essentially gives her 12 abilities or 18 if you count the 5 orb attacks as new attacks instead of just additional effects.

Do you think a champion like this could work or is it too complicated? I think her abilities are straightforward, the thing is to memorize and time well her combos. She's not beginner friendly, and properly made she should be able to be used even in the meta without being OP. Her real damage comes from pulling off a full combo, amazing duelist but not unkillable, with proper team fighting or planning she can be stopped, but she still can play a role with some utility. Ideally, even in the hands of a pro she can't just kill everyone in a high elo game without knowing very well positioning, timing, enemy's skills, etc.

2 Comments

THE RlVER KlNG4/16/2017, 3:45:43 PM1 votes

{quoted}

Do you think a champion like this could work or is it too complicated? I think her abilities are straightforward, the thing is to memorize and time well her combos. She's not beginner friendly, and properly made she should be able to be used even in the meta without being OP. Her real damage comes from pulling off a full combo, amazing duelist but not unkillable, with proper team fighting or planning she can be stopped, but she still can play a role with some utility. Ideally, even in the hands of a pro she can't just kill everyone in a high elo game without knowing very well positioning, timing, enemy's skills, etc.

This paragraph irks me because I think even you know you went overboard on this concept. It sounds like you're trying to convince yourself at this point.

She has a hard CC effect on every ability - multiple pulls, a silence, slows, stuns, and a lot of it AoE - it's all far too much. She's mobile, can displace wards?, and even disarm epic monsters, a huge no-no. I don't really want to sit down and write a long review for this concept because quite frankly I don't want to - she doesn't really fulfill her theme at all as a Void character - she just feels like you tried to make a Street Fighter character into a League champion, which is not a smooth transition. On top of all the stuff she has crammed into her kit to displace, damage, and fuck over her lane opponent, she also has two forms and a bizarre stacking mechanic that makes it utter hell for her lane opponent to keep track of whatever is happening at any given time. There should never be a champion where you have to memorize these long paragraphs of effects that can change at any given time. Even worse, there are no numbers here for me to work with, no cooldowns, and she obviously doesn't use mana, so she never has to worry about any sort of resource management aside from her orbs, which don't gate her whatsoever.

Definitely very creative, but hopelessly overloaded and would be a nightmare to face.

CobaltTheMadMage4/16/2017, 7:22:46 PM1 votes

While I certainly wouldn't mind more Void champs, what you just described doesn't sound anything at all like something that would come from the Void, let alone rule it. If anything she sounds like she should be Noxian or Ionian; I don't think the eldritch darkness of the Void should have anything so familiar and coherent as a "ruler", let alone one that seems so human.

As for her kit:

Passive: so... basically Darius' except stacking on you instead of the target. Also for some reason the notion of holding it until you get hit 5 times is weird to me; basically any burst champ or ADC with decent attack speed will render it useless. And with the way you described the stances, it sounds like you actually deduct from base stats depending on which stance you are in rather than simply change which passive buff you get from your stance like the other champs do.

Q: So her Scythe stance is basically Darius' Q that also becomes Lucian's W at full stacks. Kusarigama stance is Camille's Q that becomes Syndra's W at full stacks. That seems like a very jarring change to me.

W: Scythe stance is like Fiora's parry that is useless in less-than-ideal network response times and also procs a Cho'Gath W at full stacks and gives free BS shenanigans against Epic Monsters specifically. Kusarigama stance is a Thresh hook where your team's ability or inability to land roots determines which direction it pulls instead of you, full stacks becomes... an AOE Scythe stance parry. I admit the cone damage made a bit of sense on an angry parry, but where the heck does a root turn into an AOE parry at full stacks? Changing your abilities so drastically at a certain stack threshold sounds cool on paper, but if my experience playing Rumble has taught me anything it's that in the heat of battle you don't have time to keep track of your stacks; you want your ability to do what it normally does and will be very upset when it suddenly doesn't anymore. Maybe just do an AOE DOT on the hooked target as the tip of the chain wraps around it?

E: Ok, so scythe mode is an on-command Violent Tendencies that at full stacks gains an extra hit, a Hydra cleave cone, and armor shred. Ok, that's not so bad. Kusarigama mode is an automatic Blitzcrank Q+E combo that at full stacks also becomes Zhonya's active and lets you pick two targets to pull and stun if they haven't left your range by the time you're done.

Ultimate: Why does it wait until level 3 of all times to be active, unlike nearly every other stance-change champ in the game? And what do you mean "no combos" until level 6? Does investing ranks in the ult just lower the cooldown time before you're allowed to change stances?

I think the problem with this champ (besides being the most decidedly non-Void-like Void champ I've seen in a while) is that it's trying to do too much at once. It wants to be a stance change champ like Jayce, Nidalee, or Elise, but instead of giving up a specific ultimate like such champs do, it tries to have six Ultimates in the form of passive-stacked empowered abilities a la Rengar. In the end it just ends up trying to be a strategic CC/bully champ like Blitzcrank, Darius, Thresh, or Camille, but goes about it in an arbitrarily convoluted fashion. It's one thing if a champ takes a lot of skill to use to its fullest potential; it's a whole other story if a champ takes a lot of skill to use period.

I think the best advice I could give for this champ would be either "trim the fat" or "make up your mind". Don't just throw a bunch of things that worked on other champs together in a blender and hope for the best; use things that make sense in a way that makes them make sense together.

You want a stance change champ? Cool; just make sure to plan out the different stances with a clear and coherent purpose for each. Jayce goes from melee bully to range bully, Nidalee goes from range setup and support to single-target pursuit killer, Elise uses her ranged CC harrier form to set up for burst sustain in her spider form, etc. Think more clearly about what you want each stance to do and be, don't just pick two cool things and make them interchangeable stances because it sounds awesome.

You want a passive that stacks toward empowered abilities? Don't see why not, just make them feel like natural extensions of the base ability. Like Karma, Rengar, or Heimerdinger; don't change the ability outright, just make it the old ability plus a simple bonus like extra range/AOE, increased damage or debuffs, or an added on-hit effect. If you change the ability entirely it could ruin you in burst if your ability suddenly switches when you were planning your combo around the old version.

You want a Void leader champ? ...probably want to google "eldritch abomination" for ideas rather than just use your favorite weapon combos. None of the previous Void champs have been anything approaching human, and the one female Voidborn we have (RekSai ) doesn't look "feminine" at all. Putting all the Voidborn under the rulership of some cranky lady with a somewhat cliche'd "evil" weapon would be the biggest anticlimax in League lore.