Thoughts on the future of Wukong skins
With the year almost over, I felt it would be a good opportunity to talk about Wukong skins as a whole, both in case he does get a skin before the year is out, but more as something to think about for the future from a Wukong main's perspective.
http://2t.5068.com/uploads/allimg/111115/1034564341-0.jpg
Wukong's current skins
Four of his current skins have ties to Journey to the West, from Volcanic which is honestly pretty slight all things considered, to Radiant Wukong which is literally Wukong cosplaying himself from Journey to the West. To me this not only takes away from possible unique skin concepts for Wukong, but takes away from other champs who would be really neat to see get Journey to the West inspired skins for. For example, the one champ that comes to mind for me is 
getting a skin referencing a character called Shā Wùjìng (The sand monk):
Looking at the two its almost a perfect fit. Just replace Ryze's scroll with a monk spade (or even have a scroll wrapped around a monk spade), give him some monk beads and give his spells sand textures/effects and there you go, a great new skin for Ryze. same could be done with a lot of characters from the story and solely focusing on Wukong for things relating to Journey to the West is a bit of a waste. We already have an entire skin line dedicated to the "Romance of the three kingdoms" story, why not make skins based off of one of the other Four Great Classical Novels .
Skin Theme
Skin theme vs Champ theme has been one of the major factors Riot takes into account when picking who gets what skins. As such just looking at Wukong's skins I feel there isn't enough focus on what can be done with Wukong thematically. His Underworld skin was a step in the right direction, but the Underworld skin line doesn't have much going for it with only two champs and keeps feeling less and less interesting with the introduction of more and more "Shadow Isles" themed skins (Soul Stealer, Gravelord, Soul Reaver and now Death Sworn). Wukong can be very versatile for skin themes if given the chance. Honestly I could see him fit in far more skin lines then more popular champs like Ahri or Ezreal, He just needs to be given the opportunity to be looked at for those skin lines.
Skins I'd like to see
This is just a list of skins I'd personally like to see for Wukong and why I think they would work for him:
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Arcade Wukong - Wukong is one of the most reused characters in entertainment that I can think of, let alone video games. We currently have at least 5 MOBAS with a version of Wukong and 2 that have a character that has a Wukong skin. It would be so easy to make an arcade skin for him and have him reference this fact, along with the different versions of himself in each game. It also opens the way for neat particle effects for his abilities, on decoy kill it displays an extra life counter that drops from 1 to 0, his Q could show an armor down debuff in the same spirit as Arcade Sona's buffs and a point counter could be added on his ult for every enemy champ hit. Out of most of the ideas, I believe Wukong would fit this skin line the best while really giving him some cool new effects to play with.
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Blood Moon Wukong - This one isn't so much about the look of the skin to me, but rather what can be done with his particles and theme. For example if Wukong's staff was replaced with a giant calligraphy brush, his abilities could have ink like effects and could be themed around Calligraphy. From seeing what the Blood Moon theme did for
and his outdated particle effects, I have no doubt that the Riot could do a great job with Blood Moon Wukong. -
Mecha/Project/Program/Battlecast/Lancer Wukong - Pretty much any skin line that involves mechanized champs to some degree. Just replace Wukong's Cloud with rockets or boosters of some kind and give his clones a digital particle effects when they vanish and the rest easily falls into place.
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Hextech Wukong - I didn't really give much thought into this skin line for Wukong until I saw this skin concept http://pre01.deviantart.net/1260/th/pre/f/2015/272/9/a/hextech_wukong_by_brotherbaston-d9bc1pg.jpg Although the colors do look a bit off from the normal hextech skin line, It really would stand out among Wukong's current skins and could have some very cool particles to go along with it.
runner up concepts - Two concepts that are more popular, Gentleman and Forsaken/Chosen Wukong. I do like the concepts of these two, but I feel like Smite already covered these with their Sun Wukong:
https://game-guide.fr/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Sun-Wukong_Dark-Lord.png
Dark Lord
http://smite.noobabble.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2017/08/Earl-Wubert-St-Kongfrey-Sun-Wukong.jpg
Earl Wubert St.Kongfrey
If Riot can come up with a good concept that makes the skins feel unique then more power to them (could be cool to see Riot try to out do them with those themes), but personally I don't feel using themes that other games have already covered for skins is a good way to make our Wukong stand out.
Skin Tier/ Price
Finally is the question of what level of skin should Wukong get. Setting aside personal bias, I strongly believe a Legendary (1820 RP) Skin is his best bet (I know how it sounds but hear me out). The reason for that is how little Wukong has to work with in terms of particles, VO and animation. Epic (1350 RP) Skins like Radiant and Underworld Wukong have shown that he really doesn't have much there effect wise to play around with unlike most other champs. Most of Wukong's abilites are ether instant, giving very little time for any effects to be seen or don't have a lot of particles in general.
Radiant Wukong alone ended up adding one extra line (which is rare for this tier of skin) and pioneered one of, if not the first skin based home guard animation just to make up for how little that could be done for Wukong at that skin tier. A Gameplay update could potentially fix that issue one day, but that seems very far away right now. If Wukong were to get a Legendary skin, it could easily make up for the lack of effects with new animations and a unique VO.
TL;DR - Wukong needs less "Journey to the West" skins and needs one in a high end skin line. Give other champs a Journey to the west skin cause it would truly be unique for a lot of them. Next Wukong skin should be a 1820 RP skin to take advantage of the unique animations and VO they give seeing as he doesn't have much in the way of particles.
But of course all of that is just my opinion on the matter and wanted to speak my peace while I still can. Feel free to share your thoughts and opinions on the direction of Wukong skins or any champ for that matter.
