If Swain isn't going to be "The Tactician" anymore, will there be a new Champion to take that role?

darkdill·Oct 30, 2017·12 votes·1,409 views

Riot's reworking Swain's backstory and niche to be "The Dictator", more or less, but this leaves the slot of "Tactician" open to being filled. Having just gotten off watching some more Star Wars Rebels, and witnessing more of Grand Admiral Thrawn's brilliance in action (I love how they haven't bastardized him), I want to see someone of such caliber in League's lore.

Will there be anyone to take those reins?

44 Comments

GreenLoreOct 30, 20175 votes

I think it is possible that a new champ would fill that role eventually,but I wouldn't count on it anytime soon.

After all we still don't have a new metalmancer Mordekaiser in the game.

RalanrOct 30, 20174 votes

http://orig00.deviantart.net/8502/f/2014/015/0/a/mordekaiser_is_no_longer__1_by_eltonel-d729tog.jpg

Warlord DienekesOct 31, 20171 votes

We do have like 3 plant people though.

RalanrNov 1, 20171 votes

Two of them being trees and spirits of some sort!

GreenLoreNov 2, 20171 votes

What has that to do with that?

Chembaron YamadaOct 30, 20175 votes

I thought for a long time that Noxus shouldn't get the master tactician. That country is one of the strongest simply because of number advantage.

If a land with that many warriors has basically the best tactician in the world, conflicts with them would be totally one-sided since they get all the advantages.

The master tactician should be from a small country, making it able to compete with the other nations even if they have less warriors, simply because they got the advantage of superior tactics.

My preferred version: Piltover. That city is highly advanced. The master tactician could use cameras to collect data and give instructions from safe distance.

Their advanced culture makes sense to give them the master tactician archetype.

Other possibilities:

Mount Targon, an aspect could fill that role
Bilgewater, tricky capt'n leading a fleet

darkdillOct 30, 20172 votes

{quoted}

I thought for a long time that Noxus shouldn't get the master tactician. That country is one of the strongest simply because of number advantage.

Reminds me of the Soviets.

Warlord DienekesOct 31, 20174 votes

In fairness to the Soviets, Zhukov may be less well known than Patton, Rommel, and Montgomery, but he was very likely as good a general as anyone else in WWII. He's the one that lead the turning point battle, he's the one that successfully marched on Berlin. And changed the way we look at city defense in warfare.

That said, he knew what the USSRs strengths and weaknesses were. Their main strength was just how many more people he had than the Nazis, so that's influenced his tactics and strategies.

Warlord DienekesOct 31, 20171 votes

Personally, I want the tactician to be from Targon and most specifically not be another aspect. Having a human sitting as equals with a bunch of alien supers is just too awesome.

And it’s not like you need to have some alien mojo to be a good commander.

RalanrNov 1, 20171 votes

Would make the most sense as a support imo.

Ugh...this just makes me really want that Noxian Drill sergeant.

Warlord DienekesNov 1, 20171 votes

We all want the Noxian drill sergeant. Maybe, one day six years from now we’ll get one.

HalfTangibleNov 1, 20171 votes

Bilgewater doesn't really work, since they have both GP and MF as the leaders in their fleets. Targon's explicit Chosen One aesthetics also don't really work for a Master Tactician.

Piltover or Zaun would be a pretty good one, methinks.

Chembaron YamadaNov 1, 20171 votes

Piltover would indeed be great, not so sure about Zaun though. Zaun is too chaotic for this archetype in my opinion, there is no discipline, just mad scientists and thugs.

The closest to the Master Tactician we could get from Zaun would be a chembaron. But if they are releasing a chembaron champion, he will most likely not have the Master Tactician archetype and would go in direction of mafia instead. Urgot was originally planned to be a mafia chembaron from Zaun, but they rewrote his lore while developing him.

HelmightOct 31, 20175 votes

I kinda feel like "tactician" just isn't a great theme for a game like League of Legends. In an ideal world, any sane tactician is up on a hill three hundred miles away watching the action and dictating orders, not fighting down in the trenches with everyone else.

Not saying that Riot couldn't find a clever way to sneak a tactician into the game, but I do find it unlikely.

darkdillOct 31, 20172 votes

Fire Emblem Awakening would prove you wrong. [sg-ahri-2]

HelmightOct 31, 20171 votes

To be fair, Robin doesn't do much in the way of actual tactics. They just kinda run around and hit people with a sword/tome and leave the tactics-ing up the man in the sky :P

kalima994Oct 31, 20174 votes

So basically Azir? Azir

Warlord DienekesOct 31, 20175 votes

That’s nowhere near true. Alexander the Great, Leonidas, Pyrrhus the Great, Julius Caesar, Subotai, Richard the Lionheart, Hannibal Barca, William Marshal, Admiral Yi, Oda Nobunaga and many more all fought in the front lines at various points or near continuously. And these are the guys called out for being the best commanders of their time, some are in the running for greatest general/admiral in history.

The general up on his hill did develop as the best method when we got modern forms of communication (And even then you got people like Rommel and Roosevelt Jr who occasionally directed right under gunfire). Before that generals went where they were most needed. If their expertise was required to make sure a charge happened at the right place and at the right moment, that’s where they went (if you’re Alexander). Did a section of line need to hold for your plan to work? That’s where you went (Hannibal and Caesar).

Frankly, I think that active style of commander would be an awesome champion. Personally, I think it has potential to be a true AD support, with cool abilities to create options and areas best to fight. That’d be awesome.

darkdillOct 31, 20172 votes

Don't forget George S. Patton or Heinz Guderian.

Jet SettOct 31, 20173 votes

I hope "Dictator" doesn't mean some meathead brute force only kinda guy is gonna replace Swain. If he's not gonna be THE master tactician, then hopefully he'll be A tactician to some extent. The whole interesting part about him to me was how he managed to beat the previous general of Noxus in a straight fight that no one thought he could win, if he's some brute force kinda Dictator I can't see how his lore will make his rise to the leader of Noxus be interesting in any way.

DigielfOct 31, 20173 votes

Azir Azir is already a tactician, all his abilities are about commanding others

Warlord DienekesOct 31, 20171 votes

His abilities are about commanding his own drones.

A tactician should be about commanding other heroes.

ArakadiaOct 31, 20171 votes

A tactician commanding other heroes would be insane and poor design imo. Something like setting out guidelines for allies to follow or creating physical advantages would be better.

Warlord DienekesOct 31, 20172 votes

That's kind of what I mean. Sure Kalista has that one ability where she literally commands one of her allies. But that's an annoying ability.

What I'm thinking more like is: -Designating an enemy champion for your allies to attack, by giving them all some benefit for attacking said enemy. -Creating specific zones to fight inside, giving allies some other benefit for fighting within the zone. -Granting allies abilities like gapclosers -Maybe some ability to change the flow of a fight, granting movement speed either to engage, or retreat depending on what you think of as important at the time.

That sort of stuff. Your champion is about making these plans, and benefits if your allies actually follow your orders. While, technically your allies can still do whatever the hell they want.

ArakadiaNov 1, 20171 votes

Ahh okay! +1

RalanrNov 1, 20171 votes

I personally like the idea of having CC you can use on allies, but the trolling potential is a bit too much imo.

A lot of your suggestions imo feel like Winmore stat boosting abilities. Which I’m not a great fan of but I cannot see anything else for a commander.

Warlord DienekesNov 1, 20171 votes

You’ll have to excuse me, but I’m unfamiliar with “Winmore stat boosting” I think you mean that it just gives you more basic stats like Ad and Ap, but I cannot be certain.

RalanrNov 1, 20171 votes

That’s generally what I mean, yes.

Warlord DienekesNov 1, 20171 votes

Ahh, cool.

Well I think there is going to be a part of that, but I don’t think that needs be everything.

For example, I once designed a version of a tactician support with what I thought was a neat ability to designate enemies to be jumped on. Once designated the more different allies that dealt damage within 3 seconds the worse cc he dealt. I thought it was neat because it was basically a means of getting allies to coordinate, but instead of just giving bigger numbers it rewards with things a support is supposed to do, like cause cc.

Another idea I had was an ability called volley, which was just a ranged area damage ability. Only the area got bigger the more allies were nearby. As a more general poke ability.

The only real limitations I can think of, would be he needs to be stronger with allies, and he shouldn’t heal. He’s a tactician not a mage.

You got any cool ideas you think would fit without just being stat boosts?

RalanrNov 1, 20171 votes

What about the ability to cleanse CC off of allies? Like Gangplank oranges?

Warlord DienekesNov 1, 20171 votes

Thought of that, as sort of a rally ability.

But it seemed insanely powerful to me. Maybe could get to work with a lot of restrictions though.

RalanrNov 1, 20171 votes

Or maybe as an ultimate.

Warlord DienekesNov 1, 20171 votes

Could work. Something like this maybe:

Rally the Troops: Tacitus the Genericly Named Tactician gives all allies in a wide area a shield. If any of those allies were effected by CC they are Cleansed, and the shield is doubled.

Gives it some benefit to use even when all your allies aren't cc'd while also giving it a clear benefit to use at the best possible moment.

RalanrNov 1, 20171 votes

Might be too beneficial but I like the idea.

Warlord DienekesNov 1, 20171 votes

Well it is an ult. And it has to match up at least somewhat with abilities like Taric’s make everyone invincible thing. Or giant waves of CC.

This has been pretty fun. You have any other ideas for the champ? My original one was all about two things: making an AD support viable, and having a melee hero bot lane actually work. I’d enjoy hearing where you would take a tactician champion.

RalanrNov 1, 20171 votes

Well, there's another idea I had with a champion design a while back. I called it, "Grit your teeth." and it was basically a hard CC ability that was targeted. You could hit allies and enemies with it and the special power of it is that it cleansed the target of any CC they were in.

I was basically making a Kamina esque support character that utilized the shounen anime trope of hitting the friend who is in shock to snap them out of it.

Another ability could potentially involve the grounded condition from a skillshot, like Rengar's bola. Making it harder for enemies to run from your allies.

darkdillOct 31, 20171 votes

Not quite. He's the Emperor, and though tactics are in his background, they aren't at the forefront of his gameplay.

Chaos Milk TeaOct 30, 20172 votes

I was thinking this too. My biggest qualm with old swain was that he wasn't much of a tactician, which is exactly why I picked him up to begin with. Now he's at least going to be coherent with himself, but I STILL don't have a master tactician.

kalima994Oct 31, 20171 votes

He isn't much of a tactician anyway, he's very linear

NaalithOct 31, 20171 votes

I mean, it sounds like he did some tricky shit behind the scenes to screw over Urgot and gain the dark magic of some sort of Raven god. Although he might not be known as "the master tactician," he is definitely playing 4D chess with other Noxian leaders and being extremely ruthless and cunning in order to assume his dictatorial position. He's still extremely intelligent and good at planning, like a tactician, but when you have a dark magic wielding-raven transforming-tyrant who used underhand tactics to become the leader of one of the most powerful traditional armies of the world, tactician doesn't really bubble to the top in terms of all his "accomplishments."

Plus, we have Kled , the paragon of well thought out battle strategy and careful cool-headed planning.

shicky97Nov 1, 20171 votes

Swain doesn't really feel like "The Master Tactician" as he is now anyway. His joke is a perfect example of his fantasy versus his actual gameplay. A tactician would approach strategically from the flank to gain the advantage. In the actual game though, all Swain does is morph and eat them, no strategy required.

I don't think Noxus needs a new "Master Tactician" because they pretty much didn't have one in the first place.

ModKnightsKemplarNov 1, 20171 votes

I think we won't see anyone adopt that fantasy for awhile, simply because that's going to have to be a brand new champion. It's not like it's leaving a void in the actual gameplay; Swain's biggest issue is that he never played like a master tactician.

Having that fantasy in the game would be sweet, but that's gonna be some delicate design, I imagine.

GripaAviaraNov 1, 20171 votes

Would be cool,

Probably an ability to augment and order creeps to attack a target. Also some slick mechanics where you plan in advance by placing some sort of beacons and each beacon gives you and your team a specific boost, also you can't place them exactly near each other