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[Champion Concept] Wieland, the Steel Savage

ModEchoing·6/4/2017, 7:57:21 PM·5 votes·615 views

I cannot find a steampunk tank picture I like.

Appearance: Imagine your typical steampunk tank - massive, treads, turret with one giant cannon, etc. Now let's strap on some furs and blades, because if a Lokfar berserker is going to have a tank, you better believe he's going to have that on his tank. Particularly, it's got a giant axe-shaped plow on the front, with what looks like turbo boosters on the back. Wieland himself looks like a wild man, with long brown hair and an almost-equally long beard, both of which would strangle any razor that tried to touch them. His legs are deformed as a result of his injuries, and only have a faint hint of the muscle tone found everywhere else.

Stats: HP: 610 (+90) Health Regen: 7.8 (+0.58) Mana: 300 (+35) Mana Regen: 8.2 (+0.45) Attack Damage: 65 (+5) Attack Speed: 0.570 (+2.5%) Armor: 32 (+3.5) MR: 30 Move Speed: 310 Range: 575

Abilities:

Passive: Wyrmslayer Shells - Wieland's basic attacks deal 125% AD damage to their target and 50% (+0.5% per 1% crit) damage to all nearby enemies. Wieland has -50% total attack speed.

Blast Radius: 250

Q: Storm Front - Blasts an advancing wave of frost in a cone, dealing damage and slowing for 0.5 seconds.

Physical Damage per Wave: 40/60/80/100/120 (+1.0 bonus AD) Slow: 30% Range: 800 Cone Width: 90 degrees Mana Cost: 30/35/40/45/50 Max Charges: 3 Static Cooldown: 1 second Charge Cooldown: 9/8.5/8/7.5/7 seconds

W: Sacrifice to the Storms - Strikes Wieland with a lightning bolt that then strikes a line, dealing true damage to Wieland and all enemies in a line.

True Damage: 70/110/150/190/230 (+0.4 bonus AD) Range: 1000 Health Cost: 30% of the damage (21/33/45/57/69 (+0.13 bonus AD)) Cooldown: 12 seconds

E: RAMMING SPEED - Charges toward an enemy champion. Anything in the way takes damage and is knocked back. Enemies knocked into terrain take 50% more damage and are stunned for 1 second.

Physical Damage: 50/80/110/140/170 (+0.7 bonus AD) Range: 450 Charge Speed: 900 Knockback Distance: 400 Mana Cost: 60/65/70/75/80 Cooldown: 15/14/13/12/11

R: Glorious End - After being in combat for 6 seconds, toggle on to double Wieland's attack speed and deal bonus damage at the cost of current health on each shot. If killed while toggled on, explode after 1.5 seconds, dealing damage to enemies. Cannot be toggled off while in combat.

Has a point in it at level 1.

Bonus Damage: 10/30/50/70 (+10%/25%/25%/25% total AD) Explosion Damage: 100/250/400/550 (+100% total AD) Explosion Radius: 400 Health Cost: 5% of current health per shot Cooldown: 35/30/25/20 seconds

Short Lore: An experienced and fierce berserker and stormcaller, Wieland found himself with very few peers in Lokfar. When a monstrous sea beast reared its head in distant waters, Wieland was the first to gather a crew and set out to slay it for honor and glory. The battle was fierce, and while Wieland distinctly remembers burying his double-bladed axe in its head in the middle of a blood frenzy, his memories of what happened afterwards are rather hazy.

All he knows is that he came to in a foreign land - Piltover, as he would find out later - with both his legs broken, having floated in on some flotsam. Dread set in as he realized he was denied his warrior's death, followed by a sinking depression as he could never pursue that death again with his injuries. A Piltover inventor happened upon Wieland and took him in, explaining the intricacies of the land to him. The idea of hextech replacements for Wieland's legs was rejected out of hand - in his mind, such substitutes would make him weaker and no longer true to himself.

With the threat of the Void making a mess of trade routes, however, the inventor found a compromise - what if Wieland was just encased in armor instead of having to replace his legs?

Wieland now patrols Piltover's land trade routes in his new tank, both as thanks for his caretaker and in search of a glorious end now that he is combat capable once again.

Q&A:

What? Wieland is a ranged "ADC" "tank". He places an emphasis on single, powerful, crushing blows and an almost-suicidal play pattern for an ADC as befits his desire for a good death.

Hey, wasn't this a totally different guy before? Thanks, The Djinn. Your awesome feedback now means I have to erase all these silly questions I made.

Can I actually play him as a tank? Probably! Since his basic attacks effectively have a 125% AD ratio, grabbing a Bloodthirster as your only AD item and loading up on tank items can get you some interesting results. His CC is lackluster for a tank, though, so you're not likely to succeed as the team's sole tank.

Questions, comments, and criticisms are all welcome.

12 Comments

CanadianFarmer6/5/2017, 2:09:39 AM1 votes

Wow. Good lore information, good abilities with defined strengths and weakenesses.

My only remaining question is : Which lane do you think he should go to and why?

ModThe Djinn6/5/2017, 2:23:41 AM1 votes

This is really intriguing, and a little hard to judge balance on since it's so unique. I'm making this comment more as a note to myself to come back and give you a more thorough analysis/critique when I'm a bit more awake -- I'm not confident my usual evening slap-dash review will cut deeply enough to give this unique concept the breakdown it actually needs to say anything productive. :)

ModEchoing6/5/2017, 5:13:55 AM1 votes

Updated.

Reload time halved so early game is no longer hell. Q now works on a charge system to make CSing easier. R reload reduction reduced rather reductively 'round .25. Seconds, that is.

ModThe Djinn6/5/2017, 4:40:56 PM1 votes

{quoted}>

Stats: HP: 610 (+90) Health Regen: 7.8 (+0.58) Mana: 300 (+35) Mana Regen: 8.2 (+0.45) Attack Damage: 65 (+5) Attack Speed: 0.500 (+1%) Armor: 32 (+3.5) MR: 30 Move Speed: 300 Range: 600

Right off the bat this is a cripplingly slow movement speed, a fairly massive attack range, and the highest AD scaling in the game. This isn't a bad thing -- merely notated for my own use later on.

Passive: Wyrmslayer Shells - Wieland's basic attacks deal 125% AD damage to their target and 50% (+0.5% per 1% crit) damage to all nearby enemies, and cannot be canceled. After firing, Wieland takes 1.5 seconds to reload, reduced by bonus attack speed. Minimum reload time: 0.5 seconds at max attack speed.

A fascinating passive. It's really hard to judge, as the formulas are very complex. Still, I want some reasonable idea of how fast this can theoretically attack.

A .5 attack speed rate means his Attack Delay is .25 -- second only to that of Graves.

The 1% per level, calculated via the growth statistic formula, is 17% total bonus attack speed.

Our total attack speed ratio is thus (0.625/1.25) + (0.625/1.25 x [17%+Item AS%]). This means the following:

Base Level 18 Attack Speed: 0.585 Additional Attack Speed Required to hit Max: 383%

If the maximum is 400% for a 0.5 firing time (base growth 17% + the 383% to hit cap), and 1.5 as the base, every 1% attack speed equals a 0.0025 second faster attack.

This feels pretty disappointing -- purchasing a Phantom Dancer results in attacks of only 0.1125 seconds faster, which not be noticeable. This leaves me to wonder if locking in a static attack speed and taking a Jhin or Graves style approach might feel more impactful -- converting AS into straight AD, for example, or at least giving another shot -- right now this isn't really a "reload" so much as just a fancy way of saying "you have a really slow attack speed" since that reload time is between shots. All you've done is taken a fancy approach to adjusting this guys base AS scaling.

I'm not going to sit down right now and calculate the difference in value based on AD/AS builds compared to other characters, but I'd recommend you consider doing so -- it's SUPER important when judging the balance of this ability, and an exploration I was hoping to see included in your post.

Q: Storm Front - Fires a shell into the air that disperses into a hailstorm, dealing damage and slowing enemies in a target area on impact for 1 second. Deals 50% bonus damage to slowed enemies.

Projectile Travel Time: 0.5 seconds Physical Damage per Wave: 40/60/80/100/120 (+1.0 bonus AD) Slow: 30% Slow Duration: 2 seconds Range: 800 Radius: 250 Mana Cost: 50/60/70/80/90 Max Charges: 3 Static Cooldown: 1 second Charge Cooldown: 11/10.5/10/9.5/9

A few thoughts here.

Is that 0.5 seconds time between waves? Is the slow per wave or applied initially? Also, minor typo -- you say the slow duration is 2 seconds in the text, but 1 second in the description.

Either way, this harass is probably a bit too effective. At level 1 that's 40 + 60 + 60 damage and a fairly meaningful slow every 11 seconds. If you have, say, 40 bonus AD and the ability at level 3 after your first BF sword purchase you're looking at 80 + 120 + 120 + 40 + 60 + 60 damage -- 480 damage over 1.5 seconds, and more if your ally can slow them.

For a reliable, multi-charge, moderate-cooldown AoE with its own built in damage amplification, this seems like it scales a little too hard, especially on a 600 range character with big auto-attacks.

I might consider removing the bonus damage (it's still a 360 + 3.0 AD base damage nuke at level 5, which may be too extreme in and of itself, given that you have three charges), and making it deal 50% increased damage to minions if you're really concerned about the farming potential. As-is I'm worried that you'll just shred the opposition with a potential 3-charge burst of easily over 3000 damage + a slow as they try to close in on you.

W: Sacrifice to the Storms - Extends a lightning rod, marking the area of effect on the ground. After 1.5 seconds, a thunderbolt strikes Wieland and the area around him, dealing true damage. Wieland gains armor for 4 seconds for every champion hit.

(It's not a channel, just a delayed effect - think Ekko W.)

True Damage: 70/110/150/190/230 (+0.4 bonus AD) Armor Gain: 10/15/20/25/30 (+10% Armor) per champion Radius: 400 Health Cost: 30% of the base damage (21/33/45/57/69) Cooldown: 12 seconds

This is a fascinating ability for a long-range siege character, but I'm not sure I like it. I definitely get the intent (give him a way to survive getting jumped), but the radius is pretty high for a 300+ damage burst of True Damage, the armor gain is absurd (up to 150+50% of your armor), and the ability itself just feels like one I'd want on a bruiser of some sort. Specifically I'm concerned about the W-E combo turning Wieland into an initiation tank that gets a rather strong initiation combo every 12 seconds, and then leaves him sort of at a loss -- he's clearly a ranged character who now is super vulnerable and can't get out again.

I guess I'm also a bit concerned that it makes it really hard to dive him, which seems like it should be his vulnerability. This could be especially problematic in bottom lane, where an extra 20-30 armor can easily swing a fight -- many melee supports may actually make the fight WORSE by trying to help when this ability is up.

Don't get me wrong -- I love the delayed AoE with a punishing effect. I'm just not convinced this is the kit for it to exist on, or the precise mechanics to tie to it.

E: RAMMING SPEED - Charges a fixed distance toward an enemy champion. Anything in the way takes damage and is knocked back. Enemies knocked into terrain take 50% more damage and are stunned for 1 second.

Physical Damage: 50/80/110/140/170 (+0.7 bonus AD) Range: 600 Charge Range: 300 Charge Speed: 900 Knockback Distance: 400 Mana Cost: 60/65/70/75/80 Cooldown: 15/14/13/12/11

The charge range is really low for a character with 300 movement speed. Yes, you can acquire the target from twice that range, but you don't really close much distance. As a result, I'm frankly not sure I'll ever GET close enough to a target to actually hit them unless they want me to, or unless they're melee. If they ARE melee then I'm likely to be oppressive -- a 400 distance knockback makes me hard to re-engage onto, and with my W boosting my anti-melee power (combined with my Q to punish them, zone them, and slow their approach) I suspect Wieland will feel super oppressive, especially with heavy-hitting 600 range auto attacks.

R: Glorious End - After being in combat for 6 seconds, toggle on to reduce reload time by 0.25 seconds and deal bonus damage at the cost of current health on each shot. If killed while toggled on, explode after 1.5 seconds, dealing damage to enemies. Cannot be toggled off while in combat.

Bonus Damage: 20/40/60 (+25% total AD) Explosion Damage: 250/400/550 (+100% total AD) Explosion Radius: 400 Health Cost: 5% of current health per shot Cooldown: 30/25/20 seconds

While I like this, I'd almost rather this be a basic ability in some form. It feels a little anti-climatic for an ultimate, even though the power is definitely there. Unless you die, after all, this is basically a Master Yi W with a bit of an attack speed buff, and is further limited by your 6 second timer on a character who can really only remain engaged in combat that long if the other person lets him -- save, again, if you're harassing a melee laner, in which case this sort of reads as "zone the other person out of the lane immediately."

I'd consider upping the cooldown, perhaps removing the health cost, and making this something simpler like "your next X shots do Y" to make the windows of power a little more obvious and also let the player control the up-time a bit more. I just fear the enemy simply leaving the engagement range and leaving both players feeling frustrated that the ability has no counterplay (you can't dive this guy and burst him due to the W+E, and you can't really CHASE someone who has decided to leave if they think the combat is lasting long enough that you might pop this ability).

#CLOSING THOUGHTS

I had a lot of criticism, but don't think I didn't love this. It's a really tough project to approach, and I think you took a really good swing at it considering that. At the moment, however, it seems like Wieland is a mix of oppressive and useless, depending on who he's up against, and I can't really endorse that in a design. It FEELS like you were trying, unintentionally, to create a ranged Juggernaut -- something I've been exploring a lot myself, so it's near and dear to my heard. I can see ranged characters denying you by forcing you to hit a minion, dancing into range, and punishing you with 1-2 auto-attacks, but other ranged characters and most melee characters simply can't touch you, can't reliably engage, and may not even be able to stay in lane.

Post-lane Weiland can't even get into a fight without team support, and I think the fact that some of his abilities push him into a ranged harassing role while two others encourage nothing more than diving in means that his kit doesn't really have the cohesion I'd want in later game teamfights.

I'd love to see you take another swing at it with a better idea of the engagement range Wieland should be functioning at -- I could totally see a close-range battle tank with a single harassment ability being VERY barbaric, but this current design sort of works at cross-purposes with itself while creating a few unhealthy laning situations.

As always, just my thoughts: hope they help! I'm glad to share more specific change ideas if you're interested. :)

-The Djinn

ModThe Djinn6/8/2017, 3:43:40 PM1 votes

#VERSION 0.2 REVIEW

{quoted}Attack Speed: 0.570 (+2.5%) Move Speed: 310 Range: 575

Noting the three main changes to the statline. Much more in line with what one would expect from the role, and the lower attack speed compared to others in the roll is fine given the concept.

Passive: Wyrmslayer Shells - Wieland's basic attacks deal 125% AD damage to their target and 50% (+0.5% per 1% crit) damage to all nearby enemies. Wieland has -50% total attack speed.

Blast Radius: 250

Is that -50% total attack speed (for 0.285 attacks per second at level 1), or -50% attack speed past that? One attack per four seconds is really bad, and you may as well not have crit scaling -- he only gets 50% of the value from Attack Speed, so he's unlikely to build it, and most crit is attached to attack speed.

Q: Storm Front - Blasts an advancing wave of frost in a cone, dealing damage and slowing for 0.5 seconds.

Physical Damage per Wave: 40/60/80/100/120 (+1.0 bonus AD) Slow: 30% Range: 800 Cone Width: 90 degrees Mana Cost: 30/35/40/45/50 Max Charges: 3 Static Cooldown: 1 second Charge Cooldown: 9/8.5/8/7.5/7 seconds

Seems fine to me. It's definitely a help to his farming, and makes him a monster in late-game wave clear, but the bonus AD instead of AD was a strong choice since he's not actually that oppressive in lane despite having an almost undodgeable wide-range harass. How quickly does the cone move though? Is it reasonably escapable at the longest ends of its range? I feel it maybe should be.

W: Sacrifice to the Storms - Strikes Wieland with a lightning bolt that then strikes a line, dealing true damage to Wieland and all enemies in a line.

True Damage: 70/110/150/190/230 (+0.4 bonus AD) Range: 1000 Health Cost: 30% of the damage (21/33/45/57/69 (+0.13 bonus AD)) Cooldown: 12 seconds

Seems fine to me. I like the visual, frankly, and a long range true damage skillshot isn't something we've seen before. The damage looks okay at first glance, but I tend to assume numbers are approximately fine unless I see something hugely out of line, as they're easy to tweak.

E: RAMMING SPEED - Charges toward an enemy champion. Anything in the way takes damage and is knocked back. Enemies knocked into terrain take 50% more damage and are stunned for 1 second.

Physical Damage: 50/80/110/140/170 (+0.7 bonus AD) Range: 450 Charge Speed: 900 Knockback Distance: 400 Mana Cost: 60/65/70/75/80 Cooldown: 15/14/13/12/11

This still seems odd, especially now that he has a 1000 range skillshot and an 800 range cone. If the cone or skillshot dealt more damage the closer you are, maybe. But as it is he doesn't seem like someone who WANTS to gapclose.

Still, odd isn't a dealbreaker. I can see the knockback being helpful in lane, and it CAN help get melee characters off of you at point-blank range, so that's probably okay. I'm just doubtful it will ever be used for anything BUT pushing melee champions away.

R: Glorious End - After being in combat for 6 seconds, toggle on to double Wieland's attack speed and deal bonus damage at the cost of current health on each shot. If killed while toggled on, explode after 1.5 seconds, dealing damage to enemies. Cannot be toggled off while in combat.

Has a point in it at level 1.

Bonus Damage: 10/30/50/70 (+10%/25%/25%/25% total AD) Explosion Damage: 100/250/400/550 (+100% total AD) Explosion Radius: 400 Health Cost: 5% of current health per shot Cooldown: 35/30/25/20 seconds

I'm still not super excited about this ability, but I understand I may not be the sort of player it's targeted at. I'm still concerned that 6 seconds is a long time, and that players may miss the toggle on though. Would it be better to make exploding just a normal part of the character, and make this something like "every X seconds in combat, do Y for Z seconds?" That takes some of the activation concern away from it, and gives players one less timer to track mid-combat. Or, perhaps, trigger some special bonus after X seconds in combat with a big visual that lets them use the ability?

Something like this?

_Glorious Battle: Weiland gains [resource] while in combat, and loses it over time when out of combat. After accumulating X [resource] his attacks empower for 6/8/10 seconds, firing a barrage of two projectiles for every attack he would normally make [effectively doubling his attack speed, but hitting the same target -- seems more tank-like]. The second projectile deals 10/20/30% of his total AD in bonus physical damage. Once his Empower has ended Weiland's [resource] drops to 0 and he cannot gain [resource] for 10 seconds.

At any point when Empowered, Weiland can activate this ability again to [insert thing he can do here]._

I think it's a similar but more controllable feel, and it windows his power more in lane, since you can wait out the empower instead of just letting him toggle it on and drive you out of lane. Thoughts?

BowieTheNifty6/21/2017, 7:30:52 PM1 votes

Seeing as though the LBAT didn't go as planned, I am going to be dropping a review on Wielands kit. Keep in mind I have been a little out of it when it comes to writing up one of these, however I figured its the least I can do considering that you wanted to be apart of the contest. Anyways so without further adieu lets get on with this.

Innate So off the bat I actually enjoy the passive. Basically it makes it so that each bullet will pack a punch hitting everything in a small radius. Something about this reminds me of monster hunter, though being called wyrmslayer rounds does help with the remembering. As for the actual effect it is kinda nice. I like the idea of having these AoE sort of basic attacks, even if some exist in the game already. Though being able to increase the splash damage with critical strike does give incentive to build like a ADC. Seeing different ways to incorporate different stats always gets a plus from me. The draw back of having decreased attack speed is a good sort of way to balance it out, though I am unsure if it is what it needed. Now I get that these shells are meant to be heavy, so it would make sense for it to take some time for each shot. Being in a literal tank however I feel like attack speed wouldn't matter was it would be fixed between reloads. Just my thoughts however.

Q Alright now for an ability and how it works, I believe everything is fine. Trying to look at this from multiple perspectives and one of them is biting back a bit. It feels as this ability sort of comes out of no where. Like this viking berserker who is on a tank, pulls out the ability to release a cone of cold out of thin area? Kinda is just like a 'what?' moment. However I can see where this comes from or I have an idea of where it does. Being a berserker from Lokfar and it being related to Norse mythology I can believe it stemming from there. For an ability it seems pretty standard so nothing to really say about mechanics.

W In all honestly this reminds me a bit too much of Olaf. Seeing as they are from the same region it would make sense if they have some similar traits for each. Sacrificing health for true damage is I think a good trade off compared to some certain mechanics held by other champions. I would expect there to be a travel time with the bolt. Something similar to how Viktors death ray but that is how I visualize it. Over all not bad.

E I would call this ability the blend between an Alistar and Poppy. Something that I feel is much stronger as well. Though this brings up a few questions on how it works. So it does hit multiple targets and it can only dash towards a target champion. From what I getting off this is that you gain the ability to strike multiple targets but at the lost of being freely choosing where you are going to go. Though does Weiland stop after hitting the champion or does he keep going? This can be a big difference in game play making it either a strong initiate or strong peel. It would make sense have the guy go balls deep so this fits him.

R So sacrificing an ultimate ability for early trading capabilities? Honestly I don't enjoy the ability on how it functions. It requires to be in combat for a certain amount of time for one thing, which is a fine mechanic to have but one that is harder to maintain then you think. Not only that you take something that he had from his passive, the 50% less attack speed and completely negate it with doubling his attack speed. Even on top of that you add even more damage on top of the increased damage his basic attacks already do. All of this for his current health cost on each attack. The explosion while active I will give you credit for being pretty cool. Though I will admit that their needs to be an overall on this ultimate. It does match his search for a good death, but there could be more done to make it match more thematically and functionally.

Overall When I was first reading the kit, I was excited by the passive and his kit interacted with one another. Though as I went on, there seems to be little coherence throughout it. Each ability on its own, I feel like is rather good with some minor tweaks of explanations needed. Putting them all onto the same kit, for a berseker who got attached to a tank, just doesn't do well in my eyes. Wieland is like a collection of immiscible liquids in the same container. They don't mix to well. Hopefully that is understandable. Wieland I feel like needs work as a character and revitalization of the kit before I can say it being well done.

Just keep in mind this is just opinion. Don't mean to be harsh or put down by any means. Hopefully this was a bit more helpful for you. Have a good day Echoing.