Before you post a champion concept

I recently spent quite a bit of time on the concepts and creations board and read a lot of champion concepts. Here are some of my thoughts what you should check before posting your concept.

Language Not a real point in my list since it seems like a no brainer to many, but don't post your concept in your mother language if its not english! You will reach far fewer people and your concept could have been the greatest one ever, but the majority of players will never know. Even when posting in english use proper language. No one likes to read a concept that goes like " if u link to an ally u can pull them to you one in the next for seconds". i still can't fully understand what it means but here is what i think it means: "if you link to an ally you can pull them to you in the next 4 seconds". If you are unsure about the quality of your writing get someone to read it for you. This can be great not only to find problems with your language, but can often tell you if you wrote in a confusing way. It is quite common that along the line of developing your champion that some parts of their kit becomes self explanatory and obvious to you and therefore it can happen that you don't include or include too little of a description on how part of your kit works. To avoid that try reading your concept as if you have never heard of your champion before, but that can be hard so getting someone to read it before posting is always a great way to make sure it is not confusing. The reader doesn’t even have to be familiar with League of Legends, since they will be even better to find things that are confusing since they don't have knowledge of the game to help them understand something that is a bit unclear. My personal recommendation is first letting someone read it who is familiar with League of Legends, who can point out obvious mistakes and find problems with the kit, but does not need to be the best in english and then someone who has little to no knowledge about League of Legends, but is very good in english. That way you first get your kit in a healthy state and then get your language of that final kit improved. Doing it the other way around has the problem of getting your language fixed first, but that can be useless if your kit needs big changes.

Theme and Originality The first thing you should think about is your champions theme. If you start designing your kit without a clear theme in mind it makes things weird and can force you to alter your theme or abilities if they don't fit all that well. Most importantly: Stick to your theme. Small tweaks are ok, every champion goes through an evolution before he is finished, but the central theme (for example star dragon, gambler with magic cards, annoying fish) should stay the same. I could freely switch annoying fish with a trident to annoying fish with a spear or annoying fish with an axe, but the core remains the same. Another important thing is that you make something original. Both your abilities and theme should be something new and fresh and not something we have all seen before. Theme usually isn't that much of a problem since people don't usually create concepts based on an already existing theme, but abilities are more troublesome. Having abilities in your kit that are similar to existing abilities but bring something new is not a problem, but having abilities in your kit that exist already except for some minor tweaks in scaling is very bad for your concept. Try to “break” the rules of the game by doing something new that has never been seen before, but still make it fit your theme and kit. You can find more details in the counterplay and synergy section. I usually start work on a champion with a vague idea of a central mechanic the champion should have, then i choose a central theme which i stick to and then i start to work on the abilities in more detail and the abilities usually influence some finer details on my champion. For example one of my concepts had a central theme of being an iron golem that is fueled by an everlasting fire in his abdomen and was based on the ability idea of using heat in a new and interesting way. While developing his weapon changed quite a bit due to changes to his q and r starting with a sword and ending up with a hammer (my personal favourite still is a mace, but the similarities to mordekaiser would be too much). This did not change the overall concept, only some smaller details.

Basic Stats A champion concept should include stats to varying detail. No one is gonna blame you if you don't write base health and growth per level down and instead just use the terms weak, normal, strong to describe how much your champion has (except for secondary resource bars that are not mana), but i recently came over a concept which had no ability cooldowns, costs, scaling values (essentially once you leveled every ability once you were done) no ranges, generally nothing but a few numbers here and there to give a vague idea how strong it is. You should always include cooldown and cost as they are the most basic things about abilities and take the time to think of scaling. An abilities exact numerical range is usually not as important for most abilities and something like missile speed for skillshots is pretty much unnecessary if your skillshot isn't unusually slow and even then just calling it slow is more than enough no need for numbers, but some indication towards range should still be there even if it's just a reference to another skill that already exists (but then again you could just copy the number from the wiki)

Scaling Proper scaling for your abilities is incredibly important to give people an idea of when your champion is going to be strong/weak. In the beginning you might be lost and wont know how to get good scaling, but if you have a general idea about your ability there usually is an existing champion out there that has a somewhat similar ability where you can look at his scaling or if you want it to deal damage similar to an already existing ability you can just take it straight out of that ability. Some general tips for getting started on scaling: Trying to make a ad skillshot? Take a look at ez q or zed shuriken. Trying to make damage over time or on hit effects? Teemo covers both! When deciding for a scaling also take the time and grab a calculator to get an estimate of your damage with fullbuild and most importantly **do not **calculate your values for every ability on its own but take into account all buffs other abilities give you. I recently came across a concept which had nice balanced abilities on its own, but 2 abilities had on hit effects and one ability doubled attack speed which resulted in 102+4% enemy max health on hit damage with and attack speed of nearly 3 (2,958) with just ruunan’s and fully stacked rageblade and this does not even take into account the onhit damage from either rageblade and ruunan’s only the stats it gives! A general rule for scaling is the more tanky and supportive your champ the higher your base damage and the lower your scaling, while assassins usually have better scalings and lower base damage. If an assassin for example has high base damage he can end up as a support like brand. For actual values i suggest for ad with low base damage to use scalings of 1 or higher since otherwise it can become a glorified basic attack while high base damage should generally have lower then 1 scaling. For ap you should never exceed a scaling of 1 except for high cooldown abilities like ults. Don't forget to include a scaling for base damages for every rank of your ability. Most champions have 5 ranks in basic abilities and 3 in their ults for a total of 18 ranks. That way basic abilities usually have something like 1/2/3/4/5 (+0.3AD) and ults 1/2/3 (+0.3AD). If you plan to make a champion with innate abilities or abilities that can't be ranked up you can force them to use their first rank up on that ability if its innate or if it's innate and cannot be ranked up you give all basic abilities 6 ranks. Usually it's enough to know you rank 1 and final rank damage since you can just create a nice scaling in between.

Unhealthy effects Due to recently having seen many concepts that had incredibly unhealthy effects i will address some effects that should be used with great care here. They can be well balanced with good scaling and counterplay options so be sure to read those sections to see if your concept uses it in a balanced way! CC Immunity: One of the most frustrating mechanics to play against, this often eliminates the common forms of counterplay and is most frustrating when used on assassins, since the best (and often only way) to shut them down is to apply hard CC to them and kill them. If you intend to use CC immunity then ask yourself if it adds something to the way you play, for example like fiora's riposte which gives her a great anti cc mechanic and ask yourself if it has a downside too. Fiora is again a great example, as it makes her unable to perform other actions an if wasted makes her incredibly vulnerable. True Damage: A very hard to balance effect since it is always great and often reduces counterplay to stacking health. True damage should be something you need to work for, making you enjoy it more when you get it and giving your opponent ways to play around it. Usually stack or combo mechanics can balance true damage pretty well, but the problem starts with a specific type of true damage, percent max health true damage. Balancing flat true damage is a lot easier since, while it is effective against tanks, it will still be stronger on squishies and can usually be balanced easier, but percent max health true damage will be strong against anyone and there is no way to build against it. When using this you have to very careful with numbers and i generally recommend not to use it since it can feel very frustrating to play against and is generally unhealthy. Of course champions like vayne have it, but she is balanced by having a very high skillcap and needing stacks to proc it, but even so once a vayne gets ahead you can usually go cry if you don't manage to CC her or pick her of. Therefore true damage is more dangerous on tanks since they are harder to shut down. Silence: An incredibly annoying effect, that rarely adds to the game and usually just takes the fun away for the affected enemy. When dealing with silences its best to look at the silences in the game. Blitz with his mini silence that is more of a channel interrupt due to its short duration and soraka with her easily escapable field. These abilities either have no notable silence or one that can be easily played around. When using a silence low duration and not being targeted are usually great ways to balance it.

Counterplay and Synergy Check if your abilities have counterplay and how well they work together. You want to leave gaps of opportunity for your enemy when you wasted an ability or when they evade it. This has the advantage of being more fun to play and more fun to play against, while also allowing you to make your numbers higher since a skillshot can always deal more damage than a targeted ability because you can dodge it. Some people might not see why it is more fun to be able to miss a skill, but you feel much more rewarded when you do land your skill or when you pull of that once in a lifetime perfect combo that gives you a pentakill. Targeted abilities are much simpler and much less satisfying in this regard since there is no skill involved for the user or its target. As for synergy it's important that you champion's kit works together well and no ability feels out of place or useless. This is especially hard when you have a great concept of 3 abilities with great synergy but can't come up with a 4th one. Don't rush to finish your concept! Take your time and find an ability that fits your champions theme and kit. If you are not sure if an ability works well just ask yourself why would you level it up? If the answer is because i have maxed everything else than you should probably revise it. Of course there will always be a max order, but it should vary depending on the situation. If you are winning in lane you might not level your defensive abilities but rather your damaging ones to snowball your opponent, but on the other hand you will max your defenses first when you are behind.

Complexity A champion with depth is good. A champion with high complexity is not necessarily deep. There is a fine line between offering great tools and confusing your player. For example an ability which reads “if you have hit your enemy with q, e, basic attack, q, w, r, basic attack, basic attack, q in this exact order and who is not facing you and has a stack of X takes 20(+0.2ad)(+0.4ap)(+0.4Armor)(+0.8mr)(+0.2 bonus attack speed)(+0.05mana) magic damage if he has more health than you and physical damage if he has less health than you” is unnecessarily complex. An ability which reads” if you have applied a stack of X and you opponent is not facing you you deal 50(+80%AD) bonus” has depth. I like to describe the difference between depth and complexity as hole in the ground. Complexity is the width of the hole and depth is the depth of the hole. You can increase depth as much as you want it doesn't add anything negative since a hole can be as deep as it wants as long as you can get over it you are fine. Increasing complexity too much on the other hand makes it impossible to get over it for your average person.

Items Always remember there are items! Try to abuse your kit. The champion concept mentioned in scaling for example is completely broken due to the scaling on the abilities, but also because the abilities effects get very abusive combined with rageblade and ruunan’s. Think of a standard build for your playstyle and think of items that could also be good even if they are not within the main build. A good starting point are the current “op” items.

Formatting Formated your concepts well. Just copy pasting a wonderfully formatted word document won't do since the LoL boards have their own formatting. Take a look at this post for information on formatting. If people want to i can include my way of formatting champion concepts on the boards. For formatting tips on writing abilities down i recommend a format as follows: [Passive/Q/W/E/R] Ability Name: Cost: X Cooldown: X

Active/Passive/Toggle: Explain effect

Notes: Explain things that might be unclear about your ability and add some maximum numbers if you have damage over time or stacking effects to give people some ideas about what can be done with this ability. You can add the answers to questions you got here so that people won't ask the same thing again.

As for how you should format the numbers in your kit i recommend 1/2/3/4/5(+0.2AP) for damage numbers, 1/2/3/4/5%(+1% per 100ap) for percentages, if they have some scaling like an ap scaling.

Lore In my opinion lore should be something you can invest time in but don't need to. Lore breathes live into a champion, but most people don't really care much for it. If you were to ask me what alistars lore is i would have no idea. With kalista i have a bit of an idea but only because i read her lore and watched the cinematic. Vlad which is one of my mains? No idea except that he is not actually a vampire just a bloodmage. Lore is great once you finished your abilities, but a good lore is nothing without a well functioning kit since playing the champ is more important than reading about him. Another thing you should keep in mind when making Lore is that Riot is currently rewriting huge parts of the Lore so making your champ based on specific events of the current lore sounds nice but can turn into complete nonsense once lore is updated. I might get some hate for this point in my list, but that's my opinion^^

Visuals Describing the visuals of your champion is important to give players an idea what they need to imagine. If you find a picture similar to what you want to design that's nice, but if not lore can give some description or as i prefer it you can just make a section of your concept a description section where you describe in detail how your champ looks, which usually gives a much better idea than lore. An advanced point about visuals is ability visuals. Most abilities are designed by writing down cost, cooldown, active/passive/toggle effect and sometimes notes to clarify the working of an ability. Adding another point for visuals of the ability is great to let the player know how the champ will look and feel ingame even more so than lore can ever hope to accomplish. I recently had a case where one of my concepts got one ability greatly improved because the visuals of an ability did fit the theme of my champ, but someone pointed out that a slight change in its visuals which also slightly altered the ability would not only look great but also feel great and fit the theme much better. If i had not described how the ability will look like everybody would have thought about it in their own way and this improvement might have never happened.

Please point out any mistakes and share your thoughts!