Thoughts on Taliyah's E Ability

HexaDecimel·5/3/2016, 7:15:50 PM·53 votes·5,153 views
Champion Reveal: Taliyah, the Stoneweaver

Now this isn't really about the function of her E but more so about the appearance of Unraveled Earth.

Riot recently revealed Taliyah's kit. And while I won't comment on her kit overall I will say that the rock models for her E ability look pretty awkward. The placement looks too uniform, and the model and textures are very repetitive. If she is using her ability to draw rocks from beneath the earth I think they should all have different shapes and be slightly different in size. In my opinion it would also look better if the rock placement on her E wasn't so orderly and perfectly lined up.

Again, Please don't take this as me knocking her kit or anything. After looking at it I thought everything looked really interesting and I am excited to see her played. I like the idea of her being an earth bender, I just think that the Unraveled Earth ability partials should have more variety in the shape for the rocks, their placement, and perhaps some of them should be a slightly different size.

39 Comments

Embertine5/3/2016, 7:19:09 PM14 votes

I agree about her E. The rocks should be more like spikes of stone, facing semi-random directions.

Trylobyte5/4/2016, 12:50:28 AM8 votes

I did think it looked a little half-assed when compared to the rest of her visuals... Guess I wasn't alone. It's probably done for clarity reasons because of how dashes interact.

Pyrodinium5/3/2016, 7:56:44 PM8 votes

I think it has more to do with a clarity issue.

Your enemies need to tell instantly if they are on the minefield, hence the uniform pattern. Taliyah is a champion that already creates a lot of visual effects on the ground, so making the stones irregular would probably impact gameplay too much.

Elijah Prophet5/4/2016, 12:01:22 AM7 votes

They look straight out of older Pokemon games.

Simple Moon5/4/2016, 11:03:40 AM5 votes

Agreed. It looks terrible. Just awful. Something like geodudes cave, on an original gameboy. It should be random rocks coming up through the ground and make it look more like her "worked ground"

Strawberrycocoa5/3/2016, 11:13:37 PM3 votes

Another couple threads were made by a trypophobe who got their phobia triggered from the rocks. So I kind of agree for your reason AND theirs, that the rocks could stand to look less organized and ordered and more varied and mis-matched, while retaining the cone shape.

coltonjs5/3/2016, 10:35:42 PM3 votes

Maybe she is OCD?

TallyZrg5/3/2016, 9:47:05 PM3 votes

I made the same observation when I saw the champion reveal. The "bombs" look very awkward and unfinished. I hope they update the spell effect of them.

Other than that though her kit looks amazing and fun to play :)

Rito Staff5/3/2016, 7:39:40 PM2 votes

They used all their coolness budget on her first 3 abilities it seems.

Spacesuit Spiff5/4/2016, 3:51:08 AM1 votes

Not quite related, but i find her passive looks kinda goofy on the skin, an ice chunk just sliding through the ground (without the winter rift anyway). It should hover a little

Yarnswift5/4/2016, 6:00:55 AM1 votes

it looks stupid.. Hopefully they will fix her before she goes live. she seems incomplete right now.

Only Play Darius5/4/2016, 9:58:48 AM1 votes

Sadly she looks only slightly less boring than the champ released right before her

joliesse5/4/2016, 10:38:41 AM1 votes

...I fell in love with her kit. But the E though...I really wish that it wasn't so uniform. When the rocks start shaking, it kind of creeps me out (reminds me of bugs in some way, also maybe due to my trypophobia) Variety would be pretty awesome!

DarkRitual5/4/2016, 11:02:10 AM1 votes

Since the aiming reticle is an arc, perhaps they should form in layered arcs, instead of a perfect grid. I think that would make it look much better and reasonable.

World Ender5/4/2016, 2:42:36 AM1 votes

You have to remember that it's symmetrical for gameplay reasons. If it were oddly shaped or the rocks were different sized, for example people caught on top left side of the ability could have an advantage of avoiding damage more easily than people on the bottom right side. The ability has to be fair for both Taliyah and her opponents.

Oleandervine5/3/2016, 10:40:10 PM1 votes

Her kit in general seems like it was cross contaminated by Sol's design team - or her kit is an amalgam of discarded Sol ideas.

Esbjörn5/3/2016, 11:16:45 PM1 votes

I dissagree. The ability looks really cool and i don't think she takes existing rocks and then tosses them to the surface, i got the impression that she shoves up random parts of soil onto the ground and shape them whilst doing so. It would be more convinient (faster and easier, since she's still learning?) to have a allready set up pattern for with her "mine field" rather then finding and figuring out how to best lift existing boulders into the ground.

On a side note it really remids me of this: http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/avatar/images/e/ed/Toph_sandbending.png/revision/latest?cb=20120915194803 Which i love*[slayer-pantheon-thumbs]*

CornbreadAvenger5/3/2016, 10:34:57 PM1 votes

I think They might look better if they were more wedge shaped like tank traps instead of round. It would give a better feeling of a mine field or just regular obstacles IMO.

EDIT: I'm assuming the rocks were supposed to look like stitching (to go with the weaver theme), but I don't think stone and dirt give the desired effect. Stitching usually stands out on cloth and other materials because of color/material variations and the way the stitching makes the surrounding area sink in a little. The stones and the terrain are more or less the same color and there is no change in the terrain to give the illusion that there is actual "weaving" going on under ground.

If they want to stick with the stitching theme, I think it could look better if they removed the little rocks on the side and tried to give the stones little arches in them like her R. That would make it look like the rocks are being sewn instead of just popping out of the ground

Cheese Pope5/4/2016, 3:18:26 AM1 votes

What I do like is the range indicator for normal cast!!!!!! Is this going to be the new standard? Are they going to revamp the range indicators?????? PLS RITO