[Champion Concept] Tulia, the Flagbearer of Demacia

#Summary#

• Champion Inspiration
• An Introduction to Tulia
• Abilities
• Strengths/Weaknesses
• Lore/Background
• Design Notes
• Change Log

#Champion Inspiration#

The champion's design was originally inspired by 's E, Demacian Standard. As such, I tried to centralize Tulia's gameplay around manipulating the flag she holds, and what she can do with it to bring her team to victory (See Design Notes below for more details).

#An Introduction to Tulia#

Tulia is a strong fighter/support who is dedicated to helping her allies and creating havoc in the thick of battle. She does this by throwing her unique spear, which allows her create zones of control in exchange for up-close dueling potential. Because of this, Tulia's playstyle can shift rapidly from a beefy front-liner to a timid support on the back-line over the course of the teamfight, and vice versa. As such, it may be that she can also work as a niche jungler or top-laner, given the right team composition.

#Abilities#

_(Passive) Symbol of Hope _ - First and foremost, we need to talk about Tulia's weapon, which is her flag-spear (see design notes for more about the weapon). . From using it as a normal weapon, or as a focus of her spells, understanding Tulia's spear and how it works in relation to the rest of her kit is vital and can be the difference between playing as her, or against her.

• Tulia's flag emits an aura that gives her and her nearby allies 3/6/9/12 bonus magic resist (levels at 1/6/11/16)
• Tulia's flag has a sight radius of 500 (this does NOT stack with Tulia's sight range)
• any auras that Tulia gains through items or her abilities are transferred over to the flag's location instead (this excludes ally champion buffs, such as 's ultimate)
• all auras that Tulia has are normalized at 850/900/950/1000 range (buffs and , but nerfs )
• Tulia's flag cannot be destroyed, but will automatically despawn upon her death

(R) Triumphant Spear - Next, let's address Tulia's ultimate. Simply put, Tulia hurls her flag-spear towards a specific location. It sounds simple on paper, but it grants Tulia a whole new set of abilities, at the cost of losing all her dueling potential as a close-range fighter. In some ways, this can be considered a stance change, but know that Tulia's QWE spells still rely on a single cooldown. This means that Tulia can't simply blow all her spells in one form, and then switch over to her second form; she has to pick and choose which spell she needs in which form, and follow-up accordingly.

• this spell is available at level 1, and can be upgraded at levels 6/11/16
• costs 60/40/20/0 mana
• on first cast, Tulia channels for 4 seconds, slowing down by 20% and gaining range for 2 seconds (cast range is 200-1000, depending on how long you channel)
• on second cast, Tulia throws her flag towards a targeted location, dealing damage wherever it lands and applying Symbol of Hope (note that there is a set delay time between Tulia throwing the flag, and the flag landing)
• if Tulia doesn't use the second cast, or is interrupted, the spell is put on a 50% reduced cooldown
• Tulia's flag has an impact radius of 75 units, and deals 50/100/150/200 (+100% AD) physical damage
• an enemy hit by the flag's impact radius is also stunned for 1 second
• while her flag is out (I will call this the Flag form for convenience's sake), Tulia is unable to use basic attacks, but gains a flat 10 movement speed (her speed in normal form is 325)
• once the flag has landed, Tulia may cast Triumphant Spear a third time at no cost, to dash over and retrieve her flag and put the spell on cooldown (note that Tulia can cast spells in her Flag form mid-dash)
• Tulia's flag will also immediately return to her if she is more than 1200 units away from it, putting the spell on cooldown
• cooldown is at 7/6/5/4 seconds

(Q) Sunder/Earth Spire - Tulia's main dueling/harass tool; it is the only spell with a relatively low cooldown. Using it will empower her next basic attack, or send a blast of energy towards her flag for long-range damage/CC. The first form of the ability serves to weaken enemies, whereas the latter form provides a quick CC, teaching enemies not to linger near her weapon for too long.

• costs 35/40/45/50/55 mana
• on cast, Tulia's next basic attack within the next 5 seconds deals a bonus 80/120/160/200/240 (+40% bonus AD) physical damage, reducing attack speed by 30% for 2 seconds
• in Flag form, Tulia sends a bolt of charged earth towards her flag, which explodes and scatters upon impact as a 400 range AoE around the flag(similar to 's ult)
• enemies hit by the bolt or the scattering AoE take 80/120/160/200/240 (+40% bonus AD) physical damage
• enemies hit by the center of the AoE are also knocked-up for 0.75 seconds
• cooldown is 9/8/7/6/5 seconds

(W) Valiant Strike/Stronghold - Tulia's next attack is empowered, making her leap towards a target. Using her flag however, creates a momentary fortress around her flag to help defend weakened allies. Tulia may use this to single out a specific enemy for her allies to capitalize on, or spread the ability's effectiveness out as an AoE, caging enemies or protecting allies.

• costs 70/75/80/85/90 mana
• on cast, Tulia's next basic attack within the next 5 seconds causes her to leap towards the target (400 range), applying a decaying slow of 40/50/60/70/80% and reducing their damage output by 3/6/9/12/15% for 2 seconds
• in Flag form, Tulia's flag generates a barrier 400 units around itself, lasting for 4 seconds
• enemies crossing the barrier are slowed by 3/4 the original amount (30/37.5/45/52.5/60%), and have their damage output reduced by 3/6/9/12/15% for 2 seconds (slow also decays)
• cooldown is 12 seconds at all ranks

(E) Pierce/Beacon - Tulia strikes forward with her weapon, knocking back enemies close to her. With her flag, she instead shields allies from damage. The former part of this ability is used mainly as a disengage tool, but can also separate enemies at close-quarters.

• costs 75 mana at all ranks
• on cast, Tulia stabs forward in front of her with her spear (250 range), dealing 70/110/150/190/230 (+50% bonus AD) physical damage
• enemies hit by the center of the spear are knocked back 300 units, whilst enemies hit by the sides take 50% reduced damage, and are pushed aside instead
• in Flag form, Tulia's flag shields any allies within 400 range for 70/110/150/190/230 (+50% bonus AD) damage for 4 seconds (effect can only apply once per champion)
• cooldown is 10 seconds at all ranks

#** Strengths and Weaknesses**#

Tulia's most powerful asset in a team is without a doubt, objective control. Using her flag, she can easily bottleneck any attempts at getting baron and dragon, or hamper enemy efforts in the jungle by making certain spots untenable to fight in. Moreover, Tulia's moveset is quite versatile, and combining different moves depending on the situation with both her Flag form and normal form makes her exceptionally hard to deal with. In teamfights, Tulia can easily traverse from the backline to the front, utilizing a unique mixture of spells to ruin the opponent's formation with her Q or W, and kicking out a specific target with her E. Alternatively, she can also provide long-range aid to straggling allies with a deftly-timed shield or Stronghold, before rushing in to strike back.

However, it should be noted that Tulia is not without her problems as well. For instance, her normal form is quite slow ( slow), given her unique weapon. She can't exactly chase down targets, or run away at a moment's notice (her W alleviates this somewhat though). Her Triumphant Spear, while providing a large dash, is a heavily telegraphed tool that can easily be interrupted, and poor positioning of it can easily lose you teamfights, as it costs Tulia precious time retrieving it and throwing it again. Teamfights in open spaces also diminish her strength, as enemies can easily reposition out of the danger that her flag poses. Last but not least, despite having a large amount of versatility, both of Tulia's forms lack central traits that are vital to both fighter and support roles respectively. As a fighter, Tulia lacks the capacity to survive under heavy fire; her normal skills simply don't have anything that lets her do so. As a support, Tulia's skills only benefit a certain area on the field, limiting her mobility and damage. As such, a player needs to make the best out of both forms, using each skillset to compensate for the other, in order to make Tulia a powerful player on the Rift.

#Lore/Background#

To be added later.

#Design Notes#

As I stated above, Tulia's design is largely based around flags, and how they operate in battle. As the insignia of the nation, seeing your country's flag should naturally inspire soldiers to fight harder, and have tangible effects on the morale of the people. This is why I tied all of Tulia's abilities so closely with her flag; to give hope to her allies in a time of need. Of course, given that the player needs to pay attention to 2 things on their screen (both Tulia and the flag's location once she has thrown it), I made the spells concerning her flag auto-targeted, so players didn't have to constantly reposition their camera view to the flag when casting a spell, and could simply press a button and have something happen.

The second thing I focused on was how to implement her flag design cohesively into the champion kit. I didn't want the flag to simply apply auras again and again, since the gameplay would be pretty boring, and it wouldn't feel engaging for the player at all. As such, I created the dual role identity (and 2 forms respectively) to help Tulia function on the frontlines, directly providing inspiration for her allies, even if she isn't as strong as other fighters. This subsequently led to the creation of Tulia's spear, which is double-sided, with a Demacian pennant strung near the tip. A flag by itself isn't very intimidating, and the spear part serves to make her warrior identity more cohesive with the support aspect the flag brings. This would allow Tulia to function up-close with the enemy, acting as a sort of off-tank or fighter, whose actions serve to rally the troops. On the other hand, once Tulia throws her flag over to a location, she loses this power (because she just lost her weapon), and must turn her attention to where she threw her flag in order to aid her allies. This makes her extremely vulnerable, which allows for some interesting counterplay, since an enemy could break through the battle lines and come at her directly. Staying in either form for too long is never advantageous for Tulia, so it should be that she constantly throws her flag out, casts a few support spells, retrieves the flag, and then goes to fight in close-range quarters. In doing so, a player makes use of both parts of her identity, and can generate a very powerful pressure on teamfights as a whole.

#Change Log#

• reduced cooldown of Triumphant Spear from 8 seconds to 7/6/5/4 seconds, and increased maximum throw range from 1000 to 900
• future changes to sections include: normal forms of Q and W, design focus, and strengths/weaknesses
• Lore to be added soon