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Svalder, the Glittering Keeper

Bjartan·9/2/2019, 11:24:15 PM·12 votes·5,554 views

**Role: **Support, AP Caster

Inspiration: Im a massive norse mythology and vikings culture enthusiast and I think I impregnated this into Svalder. The god Heimdall is also a reference. Also, im the kind of player that wards a lot and I think vision should be more used when talking about champion mechanic.

As for the wards mechanics, inspiration came from the drones in Rainbow Six Siege, I really find this part interesting for a support player to use vision like this and be able to make plays with it.

General Design Philosophy: Svalder is there to fullfill the ''totemic shaman'' champion that players wanted. He have a lot of new mechanics in his kit that can be tricky and challenging to masterize but highly rewarding, when a player is able to understand what he can do with it. He is mainly an enchanter that provide tools to peel the carry since he have some sort of crowd control and healing. He is not flashy character but there is a lot of ways to use his kit to mindblow ennemies players.

Risk Analysis: High. A lot of new mechanics and his main one can be a little bit hard to understand. Need some time of playing to become better with him and make him effective.

**Appereance: **A freljordian demigod that is an humanoid old moose. He wears shamanic clothes and he have many runic tattoos. As a weapon he use a staff with glowing crystals incrusted in it. He is amnesic and can't barely remember who he is. However, he has a joyful nature, yet, he say things that mean nothing or see things that no one can't see. Several of his voicelines are in old freljordian since he have this amnesiac problem and he is not that much known in Freljord, he is more like an old legend and no one as ever dedicated a cult to him.

Lore: Missing for now but I have a general idea.

Strenghts: New tools to use, safe poke, can create a lot of trickery, synergize well with invading junglers, vision scouting.

Weaknesses: High skill ceilling, use of wards dependent, squishy, can cause problems for teamates while clumsily cast a certain ability.

Plays Most Like: Bard Lulu

**Auto Attack: **Svalder uses range magic attack from his staff.

**Passive - Totemic Communion: **Svalder is able to move wards by himself. He can target a ward he placed or an ally ward and move it to scout the field over the next 6 seconds. After the 6 seconds, the control is lost and the ward stay where it was at the end. To proceed, Svalder need to double click on the ward, he will then not be able to move while controlling it, entering a trance that work like a channeling. There is no radius so Svalder can choose a ward anywhere in the map. It's a 50 seconds cooldown. The moving ward still give vision when doing so. The ward can be targetable and destroyed by enemies. Svalder uses wards as a spell source, this mean he can cast spells from where they are but he needs to be in a certain range from it, excepted when he is in control of one, in this case he doesn't needs to be in the radius of this ward to cast a spell from it as a source of the ability. At the start of the game, Svalder starts with a special trinket, Bjelthi, his personal totem, it works essentially like a Warding Totems but there is no cooldown between the first and the second totems placed and has 4 health instead of 3. **Design Philosophy: **The main idea behind this, was to make wards the central point of the champion abilities. Warding is an integral part of the game and not many champion constantly interact with wards, other than placing them ( Lee Sin, Jax and Elise mostly). Wards can also be a good alternative for totems with the shaman archetype.

Q - Primal Blast: Svalder fires a blast towards the target point, dealing magic damage. He can shoots three of them consecutively, the damage is amplified by each blasts landing on a target. It slow the target for 3 seconds if more than one blast land. If more than one ward is used to fire the blast and two of them land, it stun instead. Design Philosophy: Its the main ability of Svalder and with three blasts he can uses it from different angles with wards as a source of casting point. Since the wards are invisible, with good placements he will be able to make some unexpected attacks in any lanes or for any contests of objectives. In itself, its a similar ability to Lulu's Q.

W - Astral Form: Svalder sends himself, an ally or an enemy in the astral plane. The target become invulnerable but can't auto-atatck nor use abilities, it give also a movement speed bonus. It's a short period of time and the cooldown is important. After a 0.6 second delay, Svalder makes the target area impregnated by the astral plane, the champion in the highest center of the zone is affected by Astral Form. Design Philosophy: I think it can be an interesting mechanic in the game since it can be used as multiples ways. You can use it to safe ally from dying or from burst of the enemy, you can use it on yourself in the same manner too, you can use it to nullify and enemy carry for a short period of time and you can also use it as en engage tool for your frontline to enter the fight and make them reach the enemy backline without absorbing damage. The spell work like the Brand's W but with a tinier zone, so the enemies have a chance to react and can dodge it.

**E - Cure of Gyrnan: **Svalders casts a heal on an ally or himself, if a ward is in the area, a link will be created and it will provide a heal for an other ally. For each link that is created, a heal will go on an ally. Design Philosophy: Work like an healing chain and it synergize well with the ward mechanic of Svalder. Many times in a game we will see wards placed around objectives so it make Svalder to be a great asset for his team when contesting these objectives.

R - Interchange: Svalder interchanges place with a selected ally in target range of 4000 (augmenting with levels). Additionally, the ally that change place with him receive a shield. Design Philosophy: I wanted to incorporate a synergy with his W. Svalder can use his W to go in the fight and use his ultimate after to change place with an ally that is more of a bruiser. Since Svalder can cast spells from his wards, he doesn't need to be in the front and can use that kind of ultimate as his advantage to change the course of the battle ! It seems for me it can be really good in pro plays but hated elsewhere because of the trolling potential.

No image for now for Svalder but someone is suppose to make one for me since im not good a drawing. I will provide you with a lore in the future. Its the first champion concept I post on the forum but I had many concepts ideations since my beginning playing League. English is not my mother language so sorry in advance and be kind to Palnatoke ! ;)

19 Comments

RiotRiot Lutzburg9/3/2019, 8:01:01 AM14 votes

Hi Palnatoke, there's some really clever stuff going on here. I think you're right to call out the riskiness of this concept, but I think with a few tweaks you could rein in the complexity and limit the potential game health issues you could expect to find with a kit built around wards. As you probably know, vision is one of, if not the single most important mechanic in League, and it determines the outcome of fights all the time.

Here are my thoughts on the kit:

Passive- really sweet idea and definitely worth building the rest of the kit around. Being able to cast spells from totems and having empowered wards in your trinket slot is super fun and clever. Just to be clear, Svalder has to be channeling a totem to use his abilities through it, right?

Q- A Lulu style ability here makes total sense. I didn't quite understand how it could be used with multiple wars simultaneously. I think a simpler approach would be: this spell always originates from Svalder + the nearest allied ward within ~1000 units of him. Stacking multiple hits up over the three blasts to get the stun is very fun (and fair). Reminds me of Nunu E.

W- This is certainly powerful, but I actually think you could do away with the aiming paradigm you've created. This spell seems much better suited as a point-and-click spell on an ally or enemy. I feel like you could create rank-up incentives here so that the duration the champion is untargetable scales with spell rank, but make this spell unattractive to rank up first (where Q offers damage and E provides healing, which should be tuned to be more important than the utility of W). This Champion is already pretty tough to play, so I think offering some reliable utility on this spell (like Lulu's polymorph) would help broaden his appeal. If Svalder is channeling a ward, his cast range of his spell is based on the ward, right? So he could use this to support his top laner in a fight?

E- Pretty clever but lacks decision-making or counterplay. I think you could push this spell further by saying Svlader puts a HoT on himself that can bounce to nearby allies or allied wards. If he's controlling a ward, the HoT can bounce to nearby allies from its location instead. Each time it bounces, the HoT could refresh and stack. This would transform wards into healing fountains or dispensers and let him create a healing aura network around a big team fight. What do you think?

R- This one has the most griefing potential and fits the least thematically with the rest of the kit. I wouldn't be sad if this spell was completely reworked to provide more ward-centered gameplay. What if Svalder can teleport to a ward, similar to Tahm Kench's ultimate? What if he created a shockwave that destroyed or disabled all nearby enemy wards (or revealed them) and he grew stronger for each one he hits? If this guy is the totem master, I want to feel it in this spell! It should be the most totem-mastery thing he does!

ModThe Djinn9/3/2019, 12:26:04 PM2 votes

{quoted}**Passive - Totemic Communion: **Svalder is able to move wards by himself. He can target a ward he placed or an ally ward and move it to scout the field over the next 6 seconds. After the 6 seconds, the control is lost and the ward stay where it was at the end. To proceed, Svalder need to double click on the ward, he will then not be able to move while controlling it, entering a trance that work like a channeling. There is no radius so Svalder can choose a ward anywhere in the map. It's a 50 seconds cooldown. The moving ward still give vision when doing so. The ward can be targetable and destroyed by enemies.

This is awesome, but perhaps a bit clunky, because nothing in League but purchasing requires a double-click. Since you already have a custom trinket, have you considered making it have a special activation if used within X distance of an existing, or giving it a special hold-cast pattern like Pyke's Q? Either would free up the awkward double-click in favor of using an ability.

You could also repurpose the W's Astral Form to have a second cast (on an independent cooldown) where you take over a ward, which would help fit the "take yourself outside your body" theme.

Also, when you're moving as a ward, are you visible? Do you still just have four health? Both of those are fairly important questions to ask.

Svalder uses wards as a spell source, this mean he can cast spells from where they are but he needs to be in a certain range from it, excepted when he is in control of one, in this case he doesn't needs to be in the radius of this ward to cast a spell from it as a source of the ability.

How do you cast spells from where they are? For the W/E I suspect it just extends your range, but for your Q I'm not sure how you envision this casting paradigm working.

Q - Primal Blast: Svalder fires a blast towards the target point, dealing magic damage. He can shoots three of them consecutively, the damage is amplified by each blasts landing on a target. It slow the target for 3 seconds if more than one blast land. If more than one ward is used to fire the blast and two of them land, it stun instead.

See above about the casting paradigm. Is this just "fires from you and all wards within X distance?" How that works will dramatically change how the ability's balance works.

W - Astral Form: Svalder sends himself, an ally or an enemy in the astral plane. The target become invulnerable but can't auto-atatck nor use abilities, it give also a movement speed bonus. It's a short period of time and the cooldown is important. After a 0.6 second delay, Svalder makes the target area impregnated by the astral plane, the champion in the highest center of the zone is affected by Astral Form.

I liked this better when I thought it was a targeted ability. The strongest thing about it is the ability to protect an ally or remove an enemy from the fight, and you can't really do that with the AoE pattern, which can mess you up if things more. The delay seems like a good idea to differentiate it from Kayle ult's power, but you might want to consider something like "Target an ally, enemy, or yourself. After a 0.6 second delay that target is shunted to the Astral Plane, becoming invulnerable but pacified and silenced for X seconds and gaining Y% movement speed."

**E - Cure of Gyrnan: **Svalders casts a heal on an ally or himself, if a ward is in the area, a link will be created and it will provide a heal for an other ally. For each link that is created, a heal will go on an ally.

My concern here is that we're now overly dependent on wards. When I need them for healing and fighting, I'm actually disincentivized from using them for vision, as I need to save them to place in combat. I'd give some serious thought towards providing the kit with some other way to create non-ward totems, and simply using wards as additional totems. That might give you more room to play with, as it's weird that a ward-based mage is encouraged to keep wards around for combat rather than winning the vision game.

R - Interchange: Svalder interchanges place with a selected ally in target range of 4000 (augmenting with levels). Additionally, the ally that change place with him receive a shield.

I'll agree with Riot Lutzburg here -- this feels very off-theme, and honestly not that powerful given when you arrive you need to spend time placing wards to get your full power. I'd really double down on the totem / zone empowerment theme here.

FlameHalbrdOkido9/3/2019, 2:59:56 PM2 votes

I think the layout might be the biggest draw here, it really allows readers to get to the meat of what ur going fo right away. They don't have to figure out your design goals by reading the kit, its very open and clear, that makes this design shine out the most among the others, also the theme/kit/design goals are very attractive. I like support and am always looking for ways to make them cooler, the fact that this is trying to evolve the Enchanter class

this was VERY insightful of how wards are used and how they can be used with an Enchanter, this is soo gud i can barely understand it

based on what Djinn said maybe you could make ur R place down totems from stocks like Teemos ult, and then so u can still empower Fighters with low mobility you can just grant all allies within a certain radius a MS buff and shield towards totems that were recently placed.

LittleOak9/4/2019, 3:34:47 PM1 votes

Along the same lines of having the Ultimate ability really make the champion feel like a totem master, what if his Ultimate was available at level 1 like the transforming champions (Nidalee, Elise, Jayce, etc.) and you place a "greater totem." The greater totem looks almost like a miniature tower or something of decent size and significance, and you can move it with your passive, and when you're within a certain range from your greater totem, your abilities get stronger. I jungle and personally have wanted to see the Shaman type character able to jungle and I always love seeing champions that can flex oddly but still work (Like Sejuani support or Hecarim Top). I don't know how you would do it but I think you could feasibly power up all his abilities around it. Like his Q instead releases 5 bolts rather than 3, his W gives allies a major movement buff when moving towards the greater totem and enemies a major slow when running away from it, and E maybe passively heals when you and allies at a flat rate (like, if red buff is 20 health a second, give it 20 health a second healing for the greater totem, but its split over all champions in the area so if it's bot lane, the two share the healing only healing 10 health a second or in a late game team fight it's only 3 health per champ if there are 5 grouped or something like that or make it so you and your allies have to channel the greater totem to get the passive healing). I think another minor thing could be for his E, having it be a point and click, single target ability normally, but if you use it on a ward, the ward bursts turning it into an AoE heal with less healing but a minor buff that gives more health regen for a certain period of time.

Really cool concept, I know Riot has discussed a Shaman champion and cannot decide on a play style. If they dropped this I think it would be super cool. Hopefully he isn't locked into a single role and is able to be flexed throughout the map (but imo I think many more champions should have this capability but that's just me) xD Great stuff!

Caretaker Jack9/5/2019, 12:11:15 AM1 votes

you just made a champ based off my 2 most played supports... This MUST happen.

MasterHakk9/10/2019, 9:38:01 PM1 votes

Kinda late response, but the Red Tracker list brought me here.

I think the use of wards is really cool. That being said, how would the "wards as a spell source" work from the enemy's view point? There are two things that stand out to me:

Vision knowledge: Wouldn't the enemy learn the location of the wards? I think this mostly impacts stealth wards, but even with any ward hidden in brush that could be impactful.

Reaction time: Are there any unique considerations for a spell coming from a (potentially hidden) source other than the caster? I see similarities here to other champion abilities (zed shadow, janna whirlwind, illaoi tentacles), but it also is a unique mechanic. I suppose there would be a cast animation around the ward so the enemy could react to it's position.