Tahm Kench, the River King

Sharjo·Jun 23, 2015·6 votes·5,282 views

Champion Reveal: Tahm Kench, the River King

So here he is in his full glory folks, Tahm Kench, the River King! He's a Support Tank of all things and is dapper as hell. A few details:

Obviously there's no direct lore stuff here, it's the reveal. Lore isn't revealed in the big reveal, if that makes sense. We'll likely see a short bio on the pbe later today.
Nami is the champion they chose for him to demonstrate his abilities on. COINCIDENCE?! I dunno.
The background looks so Bilgewater esque it's not even funny. I dunno, maybe he's the King of the Rivers of the Blue Flame Isle?
Tahm Kanch can eat anything. Enemy or ally. A really cool thematic thing; do you really trust the monster cat fish to not swallow you whole? I love it.

23 Comments

PhoenixSlayer13Jun 23, 201510 votes

GET IN MA BELLEH

Ironclad DragonJun 23, 20154 votes

I'M BIGGER THAN YOU AND HIGHER IN THE FOOD CHAIN.

WheatloafJun 23, 20154 votes

What if he eats a 6-stack Cho...?

R2D20Jun 23, 20152 votes

He becomes Gromp of course

xNightngaleJul 10, 20151 votes

Heartburn.

Painted CeltJun 23, 20151 votes

I want my baby back ribs.

SociopathFriendJun 23, 20155 votes

Sooooo many people complaining about him not having something special on the river, that would be because that's so dumb!

Think about it, you want a champion that will be entirely gimped on three different maps just so he can have something special on a small portion of one map. The power would have to be borderline useless to not feel like a tremendous gimp when he isn't in river, or, it would have to be OP and then he'd be uber-screwed not being on the river.

BerserkGoldfishJun 23, 20153 votes

his stuff scales with max hp, how are they not even acknowledging that he'll jungle. his thick skin will help him in sustain early, then as soon as he hits 6 (he'll have cinderhulk by then) he'll start doing damage too.

Sona PingJun 23, 20155 votes

Of course, people are going to try him in the jungle; they do it with every champion. But:

{quoted}

his stuff scales with max hp, how are they not even acknowledging that he'll jungle.

Maybe for the same reason why Leona jungle isn't a thing (i.e. because it sucks). The reason a lot of junglers build tanky is because those items are cheap, that's the reason. Working well with stacking HP doesn't make something a good jungle pick.

We don't know his numbers; the base damages could be too low (or are intended to be too low) to jungle. Further, if his numbers are balanced to scale with AP and Health, that's worse because AP has a bad time in the jungle. Also, look at his kit. A jungler has to have a way to clear camps efficiently, either through AAs or abilities that are either spammable, long lasting, or AoE. His abilities don't offer that; they are more like Braum and Leona's. He only has two damaging abilities and those likely won't fit it any of those categories and will likely offer little to help jungle clearing, even if they are just prohibited by mana. His gank potential is looks awful as well.

At the moment, there is no information to give reason to think he would be a viable jungle pick. (outside of at-release-OPness, at the very least).

aaronconlinJun 24, 20152 votes

[{quoted}](name=Sona Ping,realm=NA,application-id=6kFXY1kR,discussion-id=fHvlw6NE,comment-id=00000000,timestamp=2015-06-23T18:52:47.705+0000)

Of course, people are going to try him in the jungle; they do it with every champion. But:

Maybe for the same reason why Leona jungle isn't a thing (i.e. because it sucks). The reason a lot of junglers build tanky is because those items are cheap, that's the reason. Working well with stacking HP doesn't make something a good jungle pick.

We don't know his numbers; the base damages could be too low (or are intended to be too low) to jungle. Further, if his numbers are balanced to scale with AP and Health, that's worse because AP has a bad time in the jungle. Also, look at his kit. A jungler has to have a way to clear camps efficiently, either through AAs or abilities that are either spammable, long lasting, or AoE. His abilities don't offer that; they are more like Braum and Leona's. He only has two damaging abilities and those likely won't fit it any of those categories and will likely offer little to help jungle clearing, even if they are just prohibited by mana. His gank potential is looks awful as well.

At the moment, there is no information to give reason to think he would be a viable jungle pick. (outside of at-release-OPness, at the very least).

He has decent AP scaling and can get a stun with his Q for ganking. His auto attacks scale with his max hp, so once he hits six his clears will likely be easy. He seems like a really versatile champ, riot even aknowledged that he can play multiple roles. I guess we'll have to wait and see how it goes

Jeddy017Jun 24, 20151 votes

Actually,TK won't be able to stun an enemy during a gank because he needs 3 stacks of his passive on a target 1st.Sure,he can slow a target.This could hopefully give you the chance to proc your passive,then swallow or stun the target. Even then,he couldn't just walk up into lane anytime.

KingsgraveJun 23, 20151 votes

{quoted}

his stuff scales with max hp, how are they not even acknowledging that he'll jungle. his thick skin will help him in sustain early, then as soon as he hits 6 (he'll have cinderhulk by then) he'll start doing damage too.

His clear is incredibly slow according to the rioter who made him

GreenLoreJun 23, 20153 votes

While he is called the river king,you shouldn't forget that he sees the whole world as one river,so I doubt that he is really bound to any place,he is most likely able to be wherever he wants.

SharjoJun 23, 20153 votes

I like this. I like it a lot.

False PromiseJun 24, 20152 votes

lol i don't even know how to even begin this, i just played it on PBE and it's a pile of dog shit lol first of all nobody got time to stack passive in a team fight and expect a blockable skillshot to stun anyone second he's lack of consistent damage will outweigh his E heal and you'll be forced to activate shield and waste your heal third he has no mobility whatsoever no gap closer no escape and a 95% goddamn 95% slow when devouring enemy champ for 2 seconds while he remains untargetable in your belly, you can't carry your enemy under your turret, you can't attack him and what usually happens after you spit him out is an unworthy trade since you're an ap champ and you're just outta offensive abilities. and then shield keeps you from dying and then you found yourself outta mana and have to go back home or wait for the enemy champ tower dive your ass before your shield comes back...oh wait...you only get a shield when you take more damage...well i guess you're screwed

as for supporting, you can protect you adc by eating him...every 16 seconds! wtf! and yes you can carry your adc away from danger but guess what? the 30% move speed is only applied when you're RUNNING TOWARDS THE ENEMY. so here's what usually happens at bot lane, you Q, they're slowed, you walk up to auto, you get chunked down, you get three stacks, you eat adc, you use shield because you're so low at this point that support can kill you, your shield grants full health and both you and your adc attack enemy support, but then you spit enemy adc out, your temporary shield goes down, you get killed by enemy adc with one shot, enemy adc is probably half health since you did chunked 20% of his health down but now it's a 2v1 and any support with a protecting mechanism can help enemy adc get a double kill.

he might be able to work as a jungler, eat monsters, spit out with aoe damage, gank every 180 seconds after lvl 6, and try to stack up passive since it's the only way for your offensive abilities to become a cc.

good luck with this riot failure.