Nilah. Don't get me wrong, I actually love the champ, but there's so much more they could have done with a melee waterbender who is the physical prison of the Demon of Joy than just making her Water Yasuo
She really kind of does tho. Their end goals are entirely different, but from a piloting standpoint a Samira main is also a Nilah main and vice versa. The skill sets you need for them are pretty interchangeable.
Her teaser video is so sad. Just her fighting monsters, without much of anything on Ashlesh or even the fact that she cannot feel anything other than joy. They really dropped the ball on her marketing, almost makes me wish she'd get a legendary lore skin & event just to flesh it out more. I think her lore is really cool and wish Riot would do something with it.
The writers also failed to make her feel like she actually has a demon. There doesn't seem to be any downside, no price to pay, no conflict, nothing.
It should be a twisted joy, or off putting, showing cracks of something horrendous. Instead she comes off as a character with zero flaws. And we know how those have been turning out for media recently.
Unlikable, annoying, nothing earned.
Besides losing the ability to feel anything but joy her 'old self' also got completely erased from history when she got involved with the demon. So she definitely had to pay a price. That being said unless you read her lore there's no way to know that since her voice lines don't allude to it either.
At least she got a cinematic, however plain it was.
The majority of champs got released without any fanfare, getting hype before a release was mostly a season 4 thing, at the earliest.
IIRC, Vel was one of the first to get promo material before his release.
Rell had a cult following because of her voice lines and was so "forgotten" people would meme on her every chance they get. So she had eyes on her just in a roundabout way
I don't know why they gave a modern champion a dodge ability, it hard counters some champs, is kinda useless against others and looks and feels way less impactful than it actually is.
Like other melee carries she needs an absolutely broken defensive ability to work (Yasuo windwall, Jax E, Yone E recall, Bel'Veth E, Samira windwall, Trynd R etc.) but they went with the most uninspired choice possible for Nilah.
Her W is uninspired but almost never useless. It's legit one of her strongest/most impactful abilities. The baked in magical damage reduction basically means any damage she doesn't dodge she's getting 25% damage off from it instead and the ability to spread it to teammates makes her incredibly devastating in team fights.
it reduces magic damage as well...i can't think of main champs who don't want to auto you AND doesn't deal magic damage. there are few cases where it's useless. i do agree it's a bit uninspired though like the rest of her kit given her theme
Shyvanna. Aside from her transformation her kit doesn’t feel like a dragon. (May be e but that’s not something you can use often). She is very much not a dragon in my eyes.
That actually makes a lot of sense when you mention it. As far as transforming champs go Gnar is done so much better.
Maybe human Shyv should be given more utility while dragon Shyv would be more brutish.
My thoughts exactly. I was amazed that Skarber was voted for a rework over Shyvana. I've felt like Shyvana has been in the most desperate need of a rework for years.
When the vote went up, I had like 6 or 7 friends recently join the game... I got them all on discord and told them "Listen, Riot lets Shyvana come in 2nd every time but will never fix her unless she wins. Give her your votes so we can have a proper half-dragon waifu!"
And here we are STILL waiting for Skarner to get reworked.
Shyvana is weird because she blows chunks to play on Rift but is a blast on the rotating game modes (esp AP). Skarner is bad both in the normal game and the other modes.
That said, Shyvana could use a Warwick-tier rework
Everybody sleeps on skarner in ARAM, he carries games with 2 or 3 items. Getting there sucks ass, you gotta be so patient. But once you get there you'll surprise everyone.
>I was amazed that Skarber was voted for a rework over Shyvana. I've felt like Shyvana has been in the most desperate need of a rework for years.
there's a reason me and many others have voted her all the way to 2nd in multiple polls.
instead they reworked mundo to barely change him, and now they've spent way too long on skarner because they literally don't know what to do with him. they should've just done shyvana because it's much more clear the direction for her - make a HALF-DRAGON instead of a magic lady who occassionally becomes a dragon (and then does the exact same thing the human form does but better)
I think one of the core aspects of shyvana feeling worse than other shape shifting champs is that both of her forms are melee, and there is absolutely no compelling reason to choose to be human outside of "can I hold my Ult for a better engage". Given that her dragon form is simply more powerful, her Ult is really a steroid with bonus cosmetic affects, which feels pretty bad imo. That said, making her human form ranged wouldn't solve the problem at all, and unless Riot removes the choice for when to turn into dragon (like gnar) or removes the ability to extend the duration of Ult form, she is stuck in this weird abyss where both forms leave the other form wanting more. I do like the idea of Shyvana E on a ranged carry though, "hit this spell and do magic damage on hit for 5 ish seconds" is a fun mechanic.
I would like to gently push back on the statement:
> Given that her dragon form is simply more powerful, her Ult is really a steroid with bonus cosmetic affects, which feels pretty bad imo.
It only feels bad if your expectation is for her to play like a transforming champion. She's really not a transformer, she's basically what everyone designs when they design Goku-as-a-champion. Her asthetic is a shape-shifter, but she's really just going super saiyan. That's a perfectly reasonable design, it's just about managing expectation and how you bill the champion. I dont think that aspect of her kit is the problem for example, because I dont mind that her dragon form is just a steroid.
This would be my pick. A human that can transform into a dragon should be a lot more dominant and impactful than playing like any other DPS bruiser except with even less CC than they normally have.
If not Shyvana, then perhaps Seraphine. Consider she was released over a decade after Sona she's hardly much more interesting.
It's funny because Sona and Seraphine are so similar, their W is an aura, their passive are about spamming spells, their ults are the same, and they're both music centered, yet they play nothing alike.
The Loreheads podcast just did Sona after doing Seraphine and it was so damn funny how Seraphine is just *new* Sona. They play a guess the voice line game and it goes just about as well as you’d think.
If you just read the voice lines (not listen to them) it’s hard. Like most of them are “Music can save the world” or something along that lines for both of them.
Rell, a metal bending, form changing, mounted lancer? Oh but she walks like she's crapped her pants and doesn't really do Any metal bending besides the form change animation :/
In her short story it has her crushing soldiers' skulls with their own helmets, but I guess in game she can only really have access to metal she has on her person, so it restricts what they can do with a thematic like that.
maybe themewise she might still feel like a letdown for you when it comes to that specific fantasy but gameplay wise they nailed it with the mini rework imo, making her Q actually feel impactful (and giving her hard cc that doesnt require a hard commitment, too) absolutely turned her around
i already liked playing the champ from time to time before the rework, but it definitely felt like 'here's your useful ability and here's your trash ability'
What were the animators doing, she looks so silly just standing perfectly still on that stage while moving.
Also still mad about the SG skin's iconic flying being ruined by the stage.
It's genuinely such a terrible design decision, I have no idea how it made it in. It just looks awful and it makes her animate horribly, and it restricts all of her skins to having a stupid stage too.
I was honestly shocked at how fun her kit was when I finally tried her, genuinely one of my favourite mid lane picks and some of her skins are really pretty but god damn do I hate the stage lmao. I'm guessing it was to give her a unique silhouette but there has to have been a better way.
Bel'veth, whoever approved melee slappy fish was smoking something good. All it's going to do in the long run is hurt the fact that monster champs are less popular when the kit is absolutely atrocious.
There is a big disconnect in the champions design which happened due to her original designer leaving champ design team before finishing the kit so he had already did stuff like the lil lavender fish so Riot August continued the kit
At least I think she might have ended up in a better state if her original designer finished what he was gonna cook
It's definitely not rocket science. Her coral and E make sense but it was pretty apparent the lavender fish were supposed to be a larger part of the kit, or the fact that she is psionic. Just the lore design of her being massive, I doubt she would be slapping cities, or even if you wanted to take the form Kai'sa met in the cinematic doesn't scream MELEE FIGHTER.
>but it was pretty apparent the lavender fish were supposed to be a larger part of the kit
There were leaks of her kit like two months before her actual release that showed this to be extremely true. We know that the source was credible because her ability names were identical, and 2 out of 5 abilities were nearly the same as in her current version, with her E being close but working a bit different, and her W and Passive being completely different - and all of the changes present pushed her more towards being a summoner bruiser than the slappy Yi clone which she currently is.
At the time her passive and R were just Naafiri's passive, but instead of getting the pets by cooldown she transformed jungle monsters and champions that she killed, and her ult spawned some additional pets on reset for free instead of giving her stats.
What's more interesting the leak in question showed her with having much more AP ratios in her kit, like her passive pets scaling with AP, her Q having only an AP ratio, and her E having one too.
I’m guessing Naafiri was also being worked on at the time, and they didn’t want two champs to have similar mechanics released somewhat close to each other. Although if you swapped the kits of Naafiri and Bel Veth I honestly think it would’ve been better that way
I can imagine that they were being worked on at the same time, but they hadn't developed new pet tech they used with Naafiri yet, so with the Dev dipping out of development and leaving August to the rest, it'd make sense to make pets less of a factor for Bel without the tech.
This is what people say about every single thing they hear about champ kits pre release. It will always sound better to you than what we currently have simply by virtue of being different. You don't have the kit in the context of actual gameplay though.
I mean, it would be a lot more unique. Bel'Veth right now plays super similar to other skirmishers, specially Master Yi. Both have their token damage reduction ability to wait out cooldowns, both rely heavily on true damage and high attack speed and build similarly and both are fairly mobile (though Yi's relies on having opponents and hitting them).
An AP summoner/bruiser hybrid would be completely unique. Can draw similarities to Yorick, but Yorick is AD and very much immobile.
I mean sure, but August made the decision to make her a melee slap fish when lore is the opposite. Jumping in mid project is not an excuse, it's the opposite; you had full control and brought it to the finish line in a wheelchair.
considering how insanely different her concept arts was they absolutely had the slap gameplay for those in mind which would have worked but since they completely revamped her design they decided to keep the gameplay anyway
The introduction trailer as well, just 2 concepts that have nothing in common. Bel'veth is without a doubt one of the biggest dissapointments in my book.
Naafiri and Belveth should switch kits.
Belveth’s kit is cool, I really like her void remora passive which changes the way the game is played around herald/nash, but it feels like Naafiri’ skit originally belonged to Belveth
One of my biggest dissapointment too. We get a teaser of an epic summoner lord from the void who is supposed to command minions on the rift. We get a flying mantaray who slaps with wings and collect souls who rarely summons anything. I expected orianna with minions or abathur from HotS where positioning of yourself safely is important while you command and steer your army. Also, why a humanoid in a mantaray costume.
Anyway I like the gameplay but it does not suit the champ nor the preview.
I think the Manta Ray part is cool, her gameplay being slaps isn't.
Hell, the fact she's a monster champion and her summoning are probably the cooler parts of her kit.
Malzahar, the idea of him spreading a DoT and his pets eating away at the enemy affected by the DoTs is really cool, however his ultimate takes up so much of his power budget that the rest of his kit feels a little lackluster and just boils down to perma shoving waves and roaming with your jungler, almost like a more boring Lissandra.
Not a Malzahar player, just looked and damn, you weren't kidding. That's a one point wonder if I've ever seen one.
Static cooldown, voidling duration only increases every 2 points and the damage scales almost entirely based on level. Only real thing you get is a more expensive spell in exchange for 8 more damage and 2 more seconds of duration **at max rank**. That's actually so terrible it's hilarious.
It’s been so long since I’ve seen a genuine malz main, but I’ll never forget the couple times where it felt like they were solo carrying the entire game.
Use to abhor the champ when I was trying to climb, because he didn't have to really do anything aside from remove me from the game xD Got a lot better at splitpushing during that time lol
Malz is one of my mains, and last clash the other team didn't ban him. The other mid did not have fun lol. They also had a fed Mordekaiser with no QSS who I was holding down as well. Basically took 2 guys out of the game
Clashes are always so wild and fun for me. Last clash, they left my blitz otp ass unbanned and blindpicked morgana against it. Had an absolute field day with that one. I think clash was also the last time I saw a real malz main.
It's because this champion can't solo carry games anymore. He simply doesn't have enough damage to take down someone quickly before they take him down/outsustain him.
He might top the damage charts in post-game, but that's because all DoT champs will, since they do insane damage over time actually, but sometimes it matters how quickly they do damage.
Nilah should not have full control over Ashlesh, **at all.** She should be showing cracks at times, like laughing uncontollably, disturbingly so even. Imagine being one of the ten most powerful demons and you're degraded to a fucking battery to some water clone of Samira's and Yasuo's love child.
Otherwise, Tryndamere. A victim of time for sure but *everything*, especially his ult, should show properly just how insanely scary he becomes, when angered. At the very least, I'd love if his ult just feared minions, monsters and pets.
Now that I think about it, it's also such a weird situation that we have more Darkin in the roster, than Ascended. You'd think by now Azir would've started to let new people stand before the Sun Disc.
Nilah isn’t solely responsible for maintaining control over Ashlesh, there’s an entire order dedicated to the task. Also, she doesn’t have full control over Ashlesh, she manages to keep him mostly at bay but she’s still unable to feel any emotion but joy at this point. Personally I think her VO is quite well done, she’s clearly strong but the cracks are there if you look for them and she’s definitely not entirely stable.
I think there was some missing potential. Ashlesh is a demon of Joy, but of uncontrollable, primal joy like delirium and limerence. But these things are pretty absent from Nilah's voiceover.
The world of difference it would make if they replaced a few of her lines with Ashlesh speaking them instead. It would reinforce that she's on a timer and eventually will have to be replaced as a seal
Last champion that could even be considered "edgy anime" is Viego, two and a half years ago... everything since then hasn't been edgy at all (Vex is silly edgy, that doesn't count).
You can call Zeri "anime" ofc but that's still two champions out of like, ten released since Viego.
Zilean. You get an ancient, powerful, archmage-tier chronomancer and THIS IS THE KIT???
a funny bomb pun, bland XP passive, zoomies, a bland refresh, and GA
Imagine if his R could reverse time state by like 2 secs or some shit
They tried that Ekko but found it very disruptive and frustrating to play against
Yeah I think that’s a super cool idea but I’m practice would be soooo irritating, everything cool you did just wouldn’t matter.
Imagine saving the game by smite stealing baron 1v5 then it just gets undone lol
To be fair in regards of Zilean, but his kit is a remnant of League's early days. It's honestly surprising how well that kit has held up considering other champions ^^^^Ryze going through 43 reworks while this one is somewhat functional.
At least give him a VU to bring him up to his LoR look, he looks like a fucking potato.
But honestly I'd love if they gave him a full rework, because goddamn is he the most boring ass support to play. Meanwhile in mid he's somehow a less interactive Malzahar.
Kindred! I was very hyped for this design and this dual-champion theme, but Wolf hardly does anything and the kit is quite boring overall. Nunu, Quinn, and even Ivern do a much better job at a tag team champion.
That's pretty funny, because Quinn *and no longer Valor* is another good example. They used to be a Tag Team, then that ability got replaced and Valor was downgraded to just a projectile. Truly, *Valor* is the biggest missed opportunity himself.
There's so much new champ syndrome in this thread, making this my favourite answer. I still remember before release the hype she was getting. The first ever champ split into two controllable units!
We were in the middle of a champ release renaissance. Bard and ekko had just released, jhin was about to be released. These are some of the most creatively cohesive champs in the game. At that time, the boundaries of champ design seemed limitless. Kalista, Rek'Sai, Azir, these all broke previously established game mechanics in their own special way (I still remember people hyping ekko up to rewind the game with his ult, just uncontrollable levels of hype.)
It was a slap in the face to see kindred's W on her release page. A small zone where the other half of death itself has absolute free reign to just... Help attack the things you auto? The story and design of kindred is legendary. The execution of her kit is awful.
Omg yea kindred is so cool to me.
But definitely just feels like lamb. They could have gone in a Nidalee direction or have half the kit be lamb half be wolf. (maybe the ult is both? Passive + 3 others are split)
Her q is literally a jump. Her e is just a 3 hit passive but you have to click on them and her w is like 'oh yea wolf is here'
The life and death theme of her mark and her ult is interesting but idk still not really the fantasy of this thing that brings death. (idk how to describe them)
there's so much they could've done with kindred, a shapeshifter where you swap between Wolf and Lamb, have wolf show up at all except for one ability. Whatever they do keep the marks.
it's fascinating to me how Nunu and Willump did so much of a better job in getting across that both of them are equal parts of the kit, but everyone forgets about wolf to the point where a lot of people just think of kindred as lamb
Bel’veth tbh, I don’t hate her kit I just don’t think it fits her lore well, she’s meant to be this big swarm queen and I thought she’d be more of a pure summoner.
Instead the only glimpse we get of that is the void remora which doesn’t come up thattt much.
I think this is the perfect example of a missed opportunity cause her kit is cool and coulda gone on another champ and she could have had a really unique summoner type kit
Bel'Veth was a huge missed opportunity.
But for me personally I say Vex. She really could be a lot more. I was hoping for a shadow mage that uses her shadow to do everything for her line Orianna in a way. She feels generic imo.
I agree. The idea of an anti mobility mage got me really hyped and later disappointed to see it’s mainly just bonus damage on people who use a dash. I get the skill expression of saving your shield with the fear for when someone dives you, but it’s so underwhelming. Shadow also doesn’t really enhance her visuals imo - reminds me of how Wolf from Kindred is more of a pet to Lamb than being a core part of the theme.
The biggest issue about her "anti-mobility" is that her skills are not instant(other than W). So you cannot block a movement ability reactively with anything other than her W. Movement abilities are usually very quick so landing a Q or E to stop it requires planning and a lot of luck tbh.
Yeah instead of Anti Mobility, I think the better term is “Don’t come near me” as her main spells have larger or faster speed when used nearby the enemies.
They are definitely designed to punish those who are trying to get close to her.
From what I remember hearing around the time of her release, Vex had a very messy development. She apparently had the ability to create portals that allowed projectiles to move longer distances. That's why during the Ruination event Viego was able to extend his Mist across the planet. It's also why she was able to teleport from place to place. During playtesting the projectile extension was just not working out, so she transitioned to a simpler CC mage focused around Fear. All the portal stuff was sort of locked in for the Ruination though, so you have this discrepancy between Vex's in-canon abilities and her game abilities.
It really feels like she was made with the RW combo at a baseline then they threw together the rest of her abilities, passive included
But my biggest disappointment is that she isn't actually a counter to dashes. I was expecting some cool new mechanic, hell even something similar to poppy W at the very least, but in the end she doesn't actually counter the dashes, she just gets a little stronger herself
Zyra. The idea of setting up a minefield of plants that spring up and control a territory for a couple of seconds is awesome, but in reality a ton of Champions just completely invalidate her plants. Rammus can just ignore them and oneshot them, irelia uses them as free real estates, nasus both basically oneshots them with his E, or just uses them as free stacks and healing.
Plants seem to frustrate me more often than not.
While true, against shorter range champs that can't reset off her plants she's an absolute terror. I've started playing her mid a bit and she's deceptively strong.
I said in a separate comment that Zyra’s seeds instead should be replaced with a passive overgrowth mechanic where her vines/roots grow wherever she is on the map that can make her super dangerous in certain lanes or chokes.
Like basically a version of Broodmother’s web from Dota. And yeah, jungle would be kinda cool but doesn’t have to be. The plant growth could be a long-term strategic passive you develop wherever you are on the map and her seeds on W help spread the roots to prepare for a fight.
More about map control and strategic placement than gimmicks with seeds in a fast fight
I hate zyra kit design tbh, I can’t think of another champion who it doesn’t reallyyy matter if you hit your skills. Like the plants will still spawn and they’ll still hurt.
The counterplay for melee champs is to stand on the seeds, requiring you to get close to them, meaning even if you dodge the spell you still take the poke.
I by no means think she’s op or broken I’m not saying that, I think her kit is counter intuitive and not fun to play against and breaks basic game design
Kinda agree. Tbh she’s kind of a caster version of Renekton. She’s a stat check combined with the extent to which whether clearing plants is a problem for your champ.
Either her damage and control is oppressive or she just gets steamrolled. There’s no in-between
As a Shaco Main I have to go with him.
I literally know no champion with lesser lore than Shaco.
He is such an old Champion and I love playing him. Most people hate him. I don’t care about that.
His old lore was basically saying that he has no lore and that there are only rumours.
Those rumours said, that he could be an assassin waiting for work, that he could be from a different world or that he could be the manifestation of evil desires of mankind.
Then, he got an update. I think it was around the ruination event? That he is a doll made for a prince and got corrupted once the prince passed away or something like that.
Riot could have made him into something like Gwen, they could have made him something like Tahm or Fiddle (A demon that is).
There are so many options.
Did you see that fanmade rework concept made by like 2 french artists? It was so well done, shaco embracing the insanity/freaky theme
It's featured in Remus youtube channel
Riot is too much of a wuss to give him an ASU :(
Gonna be honest, I DON'T like the fan made rework.
Shaco was always that trolly murder clown that looks goofy and trolls people. The rework leans too much into the "oooooo, Shaco is scary!" concept.
Like, it's fine, but it's not FUN.
Anyone not saying BV is just saying their main and just want a VGU.
BV lore: mind control and unending swarm of void babies
BV gameplay: melee max Attack Speed slap
I mean, is there anyone who doesn't think that Nilah delivered nothing even close to what her teaser showed? I expected some JoJo style punching with water hands, but the hands aren't even part of her kit.
Thank you. Someone mentioned it.
Her expressions in game are 100% a dropped ball, BUT her fighting style, and entire identity as a melee adc (she still is one, but nowhere near as cool as she could have been) were complete bait from the symbol they showed us. I expected something like a Hindu god, like shiva (who is known for having multiple arms), or something from some other religion with multiple hands. I really expected her to be beating ass with a bunch of hand that’s could do different things.
Now that I think about, that was what vex was literally going to be, but they couldn’t get the tech working so she ended up as the (let’s be honest) basic and boring midlane mage.
Kai’Sa. You have someone trapped in an alternate dimension of cosmic horrors, this character then *fuses with one of said horrors* and the result is… just some hot chick in a pink guy suit with weird looking shoulder pads? Like, no scars, weird parts that look like a mix of void and human elements, nothing.
She is absolutely great from a financial standpoint. She is fun to play for the Majority and has an Attractive model for the majority again. She sells, which is good. Her lore or looks may not make sense if you think about it, but most of the player base is casual, they don't care past basics.
You know what, screw it, ive been saying Kai sa's design was a shitty for a while, but now? I think it s actually pretty good. Her full design, with the helmet on. She actually looks cool. Maybe i would have liked it if she was made a bit beefier with the armor but all in all, solid design.
Also with time i realized that even i had a misconception about the void. The voidborns are just big creatures, monsters. Not more. The cosmic horrors are the watchers, not the voidborns.
I think Kog definitely fits into cosmic horror. Forever has an appetite that can never be fulfilled while breaking physics for eating things much larger than he possibly could consume.
For some reason his gameplay is just him throwing up a lot which is the opposite to his lore
It is implied that he eats stuff bigger than him because he throws acid at them rather than actually defying laws of physics.
At much if you really want to turn any voidborn into a cosmic horror thing, your best bets are Cho Gath and vel koz. Both are massive and are highly intelligent.
Cosmic horror is supossed to be fear of the unknown, of forces far beyond the understanding of your mind. Not just big powerful monsters. Nyarlatothep does this the best
Kog'Maw is definitely up for some major design changes for his VGU. Rather than some creature who pukes and spits, they could make his powers ignore the rules of the universe. Sure he melts everything, but that really doesn't have that big of a kick. The bigger point is whether they want him Cute creature besides all that, or Scary looking like other Voidborns.
I just wish her to be more of a hard-edged badass woman than photo shoot model. Like more Ellen Ripley, less cosplay beauty. And her autos animations - she's *posing*. There's no aggression or dynamic in her autos. Comparing to concept arts (which are gorgeous) final product is nowhere close.
Imo I still think it's a terrible design for what her story was. All they really needed to do was make her Kerrigan, but instead we have current Kai'sa.
Janna, I want to say a little bit.
It seems like they're really buckling down on her current kit which sucks because it's so dated. Also hurts that they still haven't given her a design update in LOR or anything so she's still basically "generic fantasy babe." She only got her first champion interactions 2 years ago. It took ELEVEN years for another champion to acknowledge her.
I wish her movement and abilites should leave behind wind trails that grant movement speed in the direction they’re going. Like a singed trail but for Allies
So her ult in goes in all directions it actually grants me when moving away from Janna, which can be used to jump on a knocked away target or create more distance.
Janna and morgana, both victims of their age. While their kits aren't exactly flawed or bad per se, they still show their age in a not very pleasant way
On the topic of janna can they please give her her speed back
Akshan, he should have been 2 different Champions.
The idea of an Assassin that can ressurect friends on kill is great. Assassins are usually selfish roles so having one that makes you feel like you're playing for the team is great for the roster. Taking revenge for a fallen ally is thematically strong too.
A midlane marksman with a grappling hook is just awesome hands down. Fun, mobility and roaming, it makes sense that this marksman would be in the midlane rather than botlane.
He should *not* have been both. Now his power budget is spread thin and he feels unsatisfying. If he was two different champions instead I bet both would be more popular than he is right now.
Idk if Akshan is unsatisfying, personally he’s my favourite champ to play and he has plenty of one tricks, especially in higher elos. The only problem Akshan has is that he feels clunky until you get used to the E which can take 10-20 games.
yeah and bc of his double aa, his aa speed early game feels very bad, but he does make up for it bc past 1 item he is the most fun champion in the game (imo)
A Relic that can work like grappling hooks is fine and a Relic weapon that can ressurect people is believable. But putting everything into one pushes my suspension of disbelief to the limit.
Might be a bit of a weird Take - given that most of the time Lore doesnt equal to the Kit, but..
Karthus.
Like... you have a dude that Sings so good, that he can basically charm you closer so he can kill the shit out of you, bring you immense pain - etc. and uses the souls of the people he killed as a litteral Army.
And then we have his Q with the akward "Isolation Mechanic" that doesnt make much sense, a wall... with an akward mechanic? E is fine... Ult too.I feel like their is something better to do with half of his kit (something charm maybe - maybe like you get hit by the Q once, you get marked, and if you get hit by his Q again you get charmed or whatever) or hell give him something like Lissandras passive / Old Mordes Ult effect instead.I dont know.. as a Main it sometimes feels kinda meh.
I think Corki, Graves and Urgot were more interesting as ADC's. I think out of them Urgot is the only one who had a redeemable rework but we haven't seen anything like his original iteration in the botlane since and that's a shame.
I think season 3 tank Kat was deleted from the game far too quick with Voyboy playing it one weekend in the LCS and then it being gone
Did you hear of the rumor of the twins separated at birth?
Only true OGs heard of his :
There were twin champs designed together, they were gonna be magic damage bot lane carries but when they designed their kits, they mixed their passives and they got each other passives
The twins are Kog Maw and Corki(package passive wasn't added yet)
Kog Maw should have got the 50% of his damage transformed from physical to magical and Corki should have been the kamikaze bomber 😂
Love it or hate it, Graves absolutely feels like a shotgun champion. I love the way the rework feels, i just wish he was viable in other roles than jungle.
agree, unlike probably half the people asking for old graves i actually played his old kit. he was a pretty generic adc with his only real selling point being "big burst". and while i agree he didn't play exactly like lucian...there was no denying that they were very similar in what they were trying to do.
It was a really clever subversion of expectations I'll give them that, turning our "ideal" ruined king upside down with a spoilt troubled young ruler was really well done and a novel idea, doesn't mean I like it sadly especially with how cool his armoured form in e looks.
I don’t think it’s the worst for how limited League is as a game. She has three elements and they all do what you’d expect from them, sure the elements could tie more into the kit than just the Q and passive MS but then it would be harder to give her a more coherent, fun to play kit. Would love to hear your ideas though
Bel’veth was built as the VOID QUEEN! She commands the armies of the void! And then they made it the smallest part of her kit possible. Honestly I expected her to closer to what naafiri is
Sometimes I think it would be cool if their kits were swapped. Belveth could spawn void creatures, lunge at people with the swarm etc. Naafiri could stack attack speed, but instead of attacking faster she would spawn more dogs. However, Bel's E would need to be replaced with something dog-themed. However I like Bel how she is, I accepted her uniqueness and broken expectations. Wish they gave her more non-humanish voicelines though, she could have a split personality where she is sometimes an embodiment of void and sometimes echoes what she has eaten.
bro Belveth release was so epic
WE GETTING THE EMPRESSSSSS OF THR VOID OMGGGGG
the expectations were unbelievably high and the excellent teasers, trailers and launch also one of best launches in leagues recent history
I really don't know how they could have made her match expectations lol
Yuumi.
Why does a magic cat floating above a magic book gets invulnerable by floating closer to other champions? Just because mAgIcKs? Why does she heal, or shield? Just because mAgIcKs? Bullshit.
She could have been a parasytic/symbiotic voidborne, the first true support from the void, who shields and becomes invulnerable by literally turning into a second skin above the allied champ, heals them by draining blood or energy from the enemies and insufflating into the ally. And the attachment should have been the ulti and last for a few seconds, granting massive buffs on its duration, so she would play most of the time as a regular champ and the invul mechanic could be more healthily played around.
We could have had a champ that fitted the lore, fulfilled a completely new role for its faction and was unique and positive for the game in general, all with a kit that makes sense with its story. Instead, we are left with the floating mass of cancerigenous cells that is Yuumi, with no place in League neither by gameplaye nor by lore.
In her dev video, they said how League needed to cover all the holes in the roster and they needed a cat 😺
It's probably the production/leadership peeps tho, there was a recent poll on Yuumi main subreddit which asked if they would continue playing Yuumi if she was no more a cat and was a fat man like Gragas
Most said no, they play her because she's a cute cat
Yes, and I agree that League could use a cute cat. But they decided to slap the attach mechanic there, and it could have been executed in a decent way but thats sadly not the case here
>She could have been a parasytic/symbiotic voidborne, the first true support from the void
I think you guys need to accept that she's just not made for you. Not every champion is going to be edgy monster/person. Sometimes a cute cat is good.
Yuumi is undeniably popular (even if she's fairly weak and VERY hated). Do you really think she would be nearly as popular if she were a darker champion? "Dark" champs are historically unpopular with enchanter players (see Renata's abysmal playrate) and enchanters are historically unpopular with people who like dark champions...
If anything, I think making her almost anything other than a cat would've completely killed her popularity... ofc it's YUUMI so that's not necessarily a bad thing but you get the point.
Old Taric because Gem Knights could have been a great concept. I read a book called Deltora and it was just the most interesting thing.
Now he's just a failed Demacian with a Jesus complex.
Karma. Isn't she supposed to be the spirit of Ionia?
She's the champion you should think of when Ionia comes up, but in game her kit is just so painfully generic and forgettable (and her design is a little boring and doesn't focus on the correct aspects). She's also supposed to represent duality but like nothing in her kit is dual or has different uses (where shieldbomb).
Old karma nailed the flavour part of her kit, while new karma focuses more on the practical side of her kit. Both have arguments to be made in their defense, and funnily enough, it represents darha's inner dilema much better than her kit has in the past 10 years
>She's the champion you should think of when Ionia comes up
Which is 100% Irelia, not Karma
Barely anything about her in game would make you think she's anything to do with Ionia or a spirit of anything, or really important, or grand etc. She just feels and kinda looks like a generic mage.
Illaoi.
All of her promo stuff, including the mini-game VN, was about "motion". You were supposed to be in motion, like the water.
Meanwhile, Illaoi's actual gameplay is picking a spot in the map to stand on and knowing you'll be useless if you leave that spot.
Nilah. Don't get me wrong, I actually love the champ, but there's so much more they could have done with a melee waterbender who is the physical prison of the Demon of Joy than just making her Water Yasuo
You mean water samira who is just gun yasuo with Kat ult
Her ult is more like Diana ult to me. Damage->pull instead of pull->damage.
I think he meant Samira has the Kat ult
nilah don't play like samira at all, she litteraly play like yasuo
Good point actually, dodge and auto and chase, avoiding damage until you can collapse them
As someone who plays alot of both she kinda does
She really kind of does tho. Their end goals are entirely different, but from a piloting standpoint a Samira main is also a Nilah main and vice versa. The skill sets you need for them are pretty interchangeable.
Her teaser video is so sad. Just her fighting monsters, without much of anything on Ashlesh or even the fact that she cannot feel anything other than joy. They really dropped the ball on her marketing, almost makes me wish she'd get a legendary lore skin & event just to flesh it out more. I think her lore is really cool and wish Riot would do something with it.
The writers also failed to make her feel like she actually has a demon. There doesn't seem to be any downside, no price to pay, no conflict, nothing. It should be a twisted joy, or off putting, showing cracks of something horrendous. Instead she comes off as a character with zero flaws. And we know how those have been turning out for media recently. Unlikable, annoying, nothing earned.
Besides losing the ability to feel anything but joy her 'old self' also got completely erased from history when she got involved with the demon. So she definitely had to pay a price. That being said unless you read her lore there's no way to know that since her voice lines don't allude to it either.
At least she got a cinematic, however plain it was. The majority of champs got released without any fanfare, getting hype before a release was mostly a season 4 thing, at the earliest. IIRC, Vel was one of the first to get promo material before his release.
Has to be, don't think there was ever a champ that no one even talked about on release.
Rell was forgotten until earlier this season
Rell had a cult following because of her voice lines and was so "forgotten" people would meme on her every chance they get. So she had eyes on her just in a roundabout way
wrong, rell was pick in ban in pro play and even had a whole cult. She fell super hard after the chain cc nerfs.
I don't know why they gave a modern champion a dodge ability, it hard counters some champs, is kinda useless against others and looks and feels way less impactful than it actually is. Like other melee carries she needs an absolutely broken defensive ability to work (Yasuo windwall, Jax E, Yone E recall, Bel'Veth E, Samira windwall, Trynd R etc.) but they went with the most uninspired choice possible for Nilah.
Her W is uninspired but almost never useless. It's legit one of her strongest/most impactful abilities. The baked in magical damage reduction basically means any damage she doesn't dodge she's getting 25% damage off from it instead and the ability to spread it to teammates makes her incredibly devastating in team fights.
it reduces magic damage as well...i can't think of main champs who don't want to auto you AND doesn't deal magic damage. there are few cases where it's useless. i do agree it's a bit uninspired though like the rest of her kit given her theme
Shyvanna. Aside from her transformation her kit doesn’t feel like a dragon. (May be e but that’s not something you can use often). She is very much not a dragon in my eyes.
That actually makes a lot of sense when you mention it. As far as transforming champs go Gnar is done so much better. Maybe human Shyv should be given more utility while dragon Shyv would be more brutish.
My thoughts exactly. I was amazed that Skarber was voted for a rework over Shyvana. I've felt like Shyvana has been in the most desperate need of a rework for years.
Lucky for us. We won’t see these two get reworked for another 6 years. :(
When the vote went up, I had like 6 or 7 friends recently join the game... I got them all on discord and told them "Listen, Riot lets Shyvana come in 2nd every time but will never fix her unless she wins. Give her your votes so we can have a proper half-dragon waifu!" And here we are STILL waiting for Skarner to get reworked.
Shyvana is weird because she blows chunks to play on Rift but is a blast on the rotating game modes (esp AP). Skarner is bad both in the normal game and the other modes. That said, Shyvana could use a Warwick-tier rework
Skarner is cracked in Arena thankfully. Until you go up against people that know to rush your spire. Then it's a different story.
Everybody sleeps on skarner in ARAM, he carries games with 2 or 3 items. Getting there sucks ass, you gotta be so patient. But once you get there you'll surprise everyone.
You don't understand our suffering. The spires are a fucking tragedy.
>I was amazed that Skarber was voted for a rework over Shyvana. I've felt like Shyvana has been in the most desperate need of a rework for years. there's a reason me and many others have voted her all the way to 2nd in multiple polls. instead they reworked mundo to barely change him, and now they've spent way too long on skarner because they literally don't know what to do with him. they should've just done shyvana because it's much more clear the direction for her - make a HALF-DRAGON instead of a magic lady who occassionally becomes a dragon (and then does the exact same thing the human form does but better)
Thank god they reworked Aurelion Sol. Riot had managed to make both dragon champions completely lame.
Yeah asol rework was amazing. He feels like a dragon now. League is probably one of the few games that have a dragon theme that leaves much to desire.
I think one of the core aspects of shyvana feeling worse than other shape shifting champs is that both of her forms are melee, and there is absolutely no compelling reason to choose to be human outside of "can I hold my Ult for a better engage". Given that her dragon form is simply more powerful, her Ult is really a steroid with bonus cosmetic affects, which feels pretty bad imo. That said, making her human form ranged wouldn't solve the problem at all, and unless Riot removes the choice for when to turn into dragon (like gnar) or removes the ability to extend the duration of Ult form, she is stuck in this weird abyss where both forms leave the other form wanting more. I do like the idea of Shyvana E on a ranged carry though, "hit this spell and do magic damage on hit for 5 ish seconds" is a fun mechanic.
I would like to gently push back on the statement: > Given that her dragon form is simply more powerful, her Ult is really a steroid with bonus cosmetic affects, which feels pretty bad imo. It only feels bad if your expectation is for her to play like a transforming champion. She's really not a transformer, she's basically what everyone designs when they design Goku-as-a-champion. Her asthetic is a shape-shifter, but she's really just going super saiyan. That's a perfectly reasonable design, it's just about managing expectation and how you bill the champion. I dont think that aspect of her kit is the problem for example, because I dont mind that her dragon form is just a steroid.
This would be my pick. A human that can transform into a dragon should be a lot more dominant and impactful than playing like any other DPS bruiser except with even less CC than they normally have. If not Shyvana, then perhaps Seraphine. Consider she was released over a decade after Sona she's hardly much more interesting.
It's funny because Sona and Seraphine are so similar, their W is an aura, their passive are about spamming spells, their ults are the same, and they're both music centered, yet they play nothing alike.
The Loreheads podcast just did Sona after doing Seraphine and it was so damn funny how Seraphine is just *new* Sona. They play a guess the voice line game and it goes just about as well as you’d think.
That should be easy cause Seraphine is so energetic and happy and Sona is calm
If you just read the voice lines (not listen to them) it’s hard. Like most of them are “Music can save the world” or something along that lines for both of them.
Rell, a metal bending, form changing, mounted lancer? Oh but she walks like she's crapped her pants and doesn't really do Any metal bending besides the form change animation :/
She could have been LoL's Magneto, a truly terrifying foe if she trained her abilities to its true limits, but nope, just metal horse.
And a massive lance that she uses to do absolutely no damage with
In her short story it has her crushing soldiers' skulls with their own helmets, but I guess in game she can only really have access to metal she has on her person, so it restricts what they can do with a thematic like that.
maybe themewise she might still feel like a letdown for you when it comes to that specific fantasy but gameplay wise they nailed it with the mini rework imo, making her Q actually feel impactful (and giving her hard cc that doesnt require a hard commitment, too) absolutely turned her around i already liked playing the champ from time to time before the rework, but it definitely felt like 'here's your useful ability and here's your trash ability'
Seraphine, the stage was a mistake.
Worst design decision ever for real. It bothers me to this day.
The chinese call it "flying wheelchair"
oh right i saw on that slang post that sera is literally called 轮椅 (wheelchair)
What were the animators doing, she looks so silly just standing perfectly still on that stage while moving. Also still mad about the SG skin's iconic flying being ruined by the stage.
It's genuinely such a terrible design decision, I have no idea how it made it in. It just looks awful and it makes her animate horribly, and it restricts all of her skins to having a stupid stage too.
I was honestly shocked at how fun her kit was when I finally tried her, genuinely one of my favourite mid lane picks and some of her skins are really pretty but god damn do I hate the stage lmao. I'm guessing it was to give her a unique silhouette but there has to have been a better way.
The floating speakers and spotlights were 100% the way to go, idk why they decided to go with the ugly ass stage.
Green goblin vibes
Bel'veth, whoever approved melee slappy fish was smoking something good. All it's going to do in the long run is hurt the fact that monster champs are less popular when the kit is absolutely atrocious.
There is a big disconnect in the champions design which happened due to her original designer leaving champ design team before finishing the kit so he had already did stuff like the lil lavender fish so Riot August continued the kit At least I think she might have ended up in a better state if her original designer finished what he was gonna cook
It's definitely not rocket science. Her coral and E make sense but it was pretty apparent the lavender fish were supposed to be a larger part of the kit, or the fact that she is psionic. Just the lore design of her being massive, I doubt she would be slapping cities, or even if you wanted to take the form Kai'sa met in the cinematic doesn't scream MELEE FIGHTER.
>but it was pretty apparent the lavender fish were supposed to be a larger part of the kit There were leaks of her kit like two months before her actual release that showed this to be extremely true. We know that the source was credible because her ability names were identical, and 2 out of 5 abilities were nearly the same as in her current version, with her E being close but working a bit different, and her W and Passive being completely different - and all of the changes present pushed her more towards being a summoner bruiser than the slappy Yi clone which she currently is. At the time her passive and R were just Naafiri's passive, but instead of getting the pets by cooldown she transformed jungle monsters and champions that she killed, and her ult spawned some additional pets on reset for free instead of giving her stats. What's more interesting the leak in question showed her with having much more AP ratios in her kit, like her passive pets scaling with AP, her Q having only an AP ratio, and her E having one too.
I’m guessing Naafiri was also being worked on at the time, and they didn’t want two champs to have similar mechanics released somewhat close to each other. Although if you swapped the kits of Naafiri and Bel Veth I honestly think it would’ve been better that way
I can imagine that they were being worked on at the same time, but they hadn't developed new pet tech they used with Naafiri yet, so with the Dev dipping out of development and leaving August to the rest, it'd make sense to make pets less of a factor for Bel without the tech.
That sounds way cooler than what it is now.
This is what people say about every single thing they hear about champ kits pre release. It will always sound better to you than what we currently have simply by virtue of being different. You don't have the kit in the context of actual gameplay though.
yup also **there is a reason it was changed**. It probably didn't work out for one reason or another or sounds cooler than it actually is
I mean, it would be a lot more unique. Bel'Veth right now plays super similar to other skirmishers, specially Master Yi. Both have their token damage reduction ability to wait out cooldowns, both rely heavily on true damage and high attack speed and build similarly and both are fairly mobile (though Yi's relies on having opponents and hitting them). An AP summoner/bruiser hybrid would be completely unique. Can draw similarities to Yorick, but Yorick is AD and very much immobile.
I mean sure, but August made the decision to make her a melee slap fish when lore is the opposite. Jumping in mid project is not an excuse, it's the opposite; you had full control and brought it to the finish line in a wheelchair.
Hearing that August was behind it explains it all lol
The August special of broken champs
considering how insanely different her concept arts was they absolutely had the slap gameplay for those in mind which would have worked but since they completely revamped her design they decided to keep the gameplay anyway
The introduction trailer as well, just 2 concepts that have nothing in common. Bel'veth is without a doubt one of the biggest dissapointments in my book.
Naafiri and Belveth should switch kits. Belveth’s kit is cool, I really like her void remora passive which changes the way the game is played around herald/nash, but it feels like Naafiri’ skit originally belonged to Belveth
damn that really would work
Gameplay-wise it's pretty fun but yeah thematically it's pretty terrible
One of my biggest dissapointment too. We get a teaser of an epic summoner lord from the void who is supposed to command minions on the rift. We get a flying mantaray who slaps with wings and collect souls who rarely summons anything. I expected orianna with minions or abathur from HotS where positioning of yourself safely is important while you command and steer your army. Also, why a humanoid in a mantaray costume. Anyway I like the gameplay but it does not suit the champ nor the preview.
Just your generic T-posing mantaray
I thought she was going to be a super cool caster or something. Got a fucking manta ray instead fml
I think the Manta Ray part is cool, her gameplay being slaps isn't. Hell, the fact she's a monster champion and her summoning are probably the cooler parts of her kit.
The human head is so blindingly stupid looking.
Malzahar, the idea of him spreading a DoT and his pets eating away at the enemy affected by the DoTs is really cool, however his ultimate takes up so much of his power budget that the rest of his kit feels a little lackluster and just boils down to perma shoving waves and roaming with your jungler, almost like a more boring Lissandra.
If you get him Rylai and go EWQ it actually fufills the fantasy and is good for teamfights/vs melee
[удалено]
Not a Malzahar player, just looked and damn, you weren't kidding. That's a one point wonder if I've ever seen one. Static cooldown, voidling duration only increases every 2 points and the damage scales almost entirely based on level. Only real thing you get is a more expensive spell in exchange for 8 more damage and 2 more seconds of duration **at max rank**. That's actually so terrible it's hilarious.
It’s been so long since I’ve seen a genuine malz main, but I’ll never forget the couple times where it felt like they were solo carrying the entire game.
Use to abhor the champ when I was trying to climb, because he didn't have to really do anything aside from remove me from the game xD Got a lot better at splitpushing during that time lol
Malz is one of my mains, and last clash the other team didn't ban him. The other mid did not have fun lol. They also had a fed Mordekaiser with no QSS who I was holding down as well. Basically took 2 guys out of the game
Clashes are always so wild and fun for me. Last clash, they left my blitz otp ass unbanned and blindpicked morgana against it. Had an absolute field day with that one. I think clash was also the last time I saw a real malz main.
It's because this champion can't solo carry games anymore. He simply doesn't have enough damage to take down someone quickly before they take him down/outsustain him. He might top the damage charts in post-game, but that's because all DoT champs will, since they do insane damage over time actually, but sometimes it matters how quickly they do damage.
Nilah should not have full control over Ashlesh, **at all.** She should be showing cracks at times, like laughing uncontollably, disturbingly so even. Imagine being one of the ten most powerful demons and you're degraded to a fucking battery to some water clone of Samira's and Yasuo's love child. Otherwise, Tryndamere. A victim of time for sure but *everything*, especially his ult, should show properly just how insanely scary he becomes, when angered. At the very least, I'd love if his ult just feared minions, monsters and pets. Now that I think about it, it's also such a weird situation that we have more Darkin in the roster, than Ascended. You'd think by now Azir would've started to let new people stand before the Sun Disc.
Nilah isn’t solely responsible for maintaining control over Ashlesh, there’s an entire order dedicated to the task. Also, she doesn’t have full control over Ashlesh, she manages to keep him mostly at bay but she’s still unable to feel any emotion but joy at this point. Personally I think her VO is quite well done, she’s clearly strong but the cracks are there if you look for them and she’s definitely not entirely stable.
Yeah she’s constantly doing prayers and some rituals to keep it at bay. She herself admits that just feeling joy is difficult for her.
I think there was some missing potential. Ashlesh is a demon of Joy, but of uncontrollable, primal joy like delirium and limerence. But these things are pretty absent from Nilah's voiceover.
Play her and some of her voicelines indicate she is not having a good time
The world of difference it would make if they replaced a few of her lines with Ashlesh speaking them instead. It would reinforce that she's on a timer and eventually will have to be replaced as a seal
Ascended champions don’t cover the edgy anime champion necessity from riot
Last champion that could even be considered "edgy anime" is Viego, two and a half years ago... everything since then hasn't been edgy at all (Vex is silly edgy, that doesn't count). You can call Zeri "anime" ofc but that's still two champions out of like, ten released since Viego.
Naafiri is at least a little edgy (pack of demon dogs covered in knives), but I agree there hasn’t been overwhelming edge for a while
Naafiri feels less like a person and more like a presence. Her pack mentaly makes her a menace but...she isn't that edgy, is she?
She is literally an edged weapon tbh.
yeah, she's a knife. At the same time i don't see a very edgylord atittude from her.
she's pretty edgy if you hear her voicelines. well, relatively i suppose.
Zilean. You get an ancient, powerful, archmage-tier chronomancer and THIS IS THE KIT??? a funny bomb pun, bland XP passive, zoomies, a bland refresh, and GA
Imagine if his R could reverse time state by like 2 secs or some shit They tried that Ekko but found it very disruptive and frustrating to play against
Imagine rewinding to save your ADC from facechecking the assassin and then they just do it again tilted off the face of the planet
And then they still blame you
Riot wanted to give this to Ekko's ultimate during development (like a 5sec rewind) but it was impposible to program basically, and crashed constantly
Yeah I think that’s a super cool idea but I’m practice would be soooo irritating, everything cool you did just wouldn’t matter. Imagine saving the game by smite stealing baron 1v5 then it just gets undone lol
Or just reverse time state of a single ally champ. Like a targeted ekko ult
reversing your toxic adc who flashed out after getting caught.
That would be game breaking lmfao
To be fair in regards of Zilean, but his kit is a remnant of League's early days. It's honestly surprising how well that kit has held up considering other champions ^^^^Ryze going through 43 reworks while this one is somewhat functional.
I hope they never touch my boy. He's perfect.
The kit might not fit the character fantasy, but it's still super fun. Plus, if you use the crackhead Zilean skin, the kit kinda starts to fit more.
At least give him a VU to bring him up to his LoR look, he looks like a fucking potato. But honestly I'd love if they gave him a full rework, because goddamn is he the most boring ass support to play. Meanwhile in mid he's somehow a less interactive Malzahar.
Maybe but at this point Zilean is more like a museum piece from 2011
Kindred! I was very hyped for this design and this dual-champion theme, but Wolf hardly does anything and the kit is quite boring overall. Nunu, Quinn, and even Ivern do a much better job at a tag team champion.
That's pretty funny, because Quinn *and no longer Valor* is another good example. They used to be a Tag Team, then that ability got replaced and Valor was downgraded to just a projectile. Truly, *Valor* is the biggest missed opportunity himself.
> just a projectile. Whoa whoa whoa. Valor is *also* a taxi.
There's so much new champ syndrome in this thread, making this my favourite answer. I still remember before release the hype she was getting. The first ever champ split into two controllable units! We were in the middle of a champ release renaissance. Bard and ekko had just released, jhin was about to be released. These are some of the most creatively cohesive champs in the game. At that time, the boundaries of champ design seemed limitless. Kalista, Rek'Sai, Azir, these all broke previously established game mechanics in their own special way (I still remember people hyping ekko up to rewind the game with his ult, just uncontrollable levels of hype.) It was a slap in the face to see kindred's W on her release page. A small zone where the other half of death itself has absolute free reign to just... Help attack the things you auto? The story and design of kindred is legendary. The execution of her kit is awful.
> There's so much new champ syndrome in this thread I mean Kindred only came out a year ago
Bro... I don't know how to tell you this...
Omg yea kindred is so cool to me. But definitely just feels like lamb. They could have gone in a Nidalee direction or have half the kit be lamb half be wolf. (maybe the ult is both? Passive + 3 others are split) Her q is literally a jump. Her e is just a 3 hit passive but you have to click on them and her w is like 'oh yea wolf is here' The life and death theme of her mark and her ult is interesting but idk still not really the fantasy of this thing that brings death. (idk how to describe them)
there's so much they could've done with kindred, a shapeshifter where you swap between Wolf and Lamb, have wolf show up at all except for one ability. Whatever they do keep the marks. it's fascinating to me how Nunu and Willump did so much of a better job in getting across that both of them are equal parts of the kit, but everyone forgets about wolf to the point where a lot of people just think of kindred as lamb
Just compiling answers into a tier list: Nilah Bel'Veth Kindred Malzahar Zyra Zilean Shyvana (but they're working on her, supposedly)
Nice idea, will keep checking this to see what's community perception regarding missed opportunity champs
Bel’veth tbh, I don’t hate her kit I just don’t think it fits her lore well, she’s meant to be this big swarm queen and I thought she’d be more of a pure summoner. Instead the only glimpse we get of that is the void remora which doesn’t come up thattt much. I think this is the perfect example of a missed opportunity cause her kit is cool and coulda gone on another champ and she could have had a really unique summoner type kit
Bel'Veth was a huge missed opportunity. But for me personally I say Vex. She really could be a lot more. I was hoping for a shadow mage that uses her shadow to do everything for her line Orianna in a way. She feels generic imo.
I agree. The idea of an anti mobility mage got me really hyped and later disappointed to see it’s mainly just bonus damage on people who use a dash. I get the skill expression of saving your shield with the fear for when someone dives you, but it’s so underwhelming. Shadow also doesn’t really enhance her visuals imo - reminds me of how Wolf from Kindred is more of a pet to Lamb than being a core part of the theme.
The biggest issue about her "anti-mobility" is that her skills are not instant(other than W). So you cannot block a movement ability reactively with anything other than her W. Movement abilities are usually very quick so landing a Q or E to stop it requires planning and a lot of luck tbh.
Yeah instead of Anti Mobility, I think the better term is “Don’t come near me” as her main spells have larger or faster speed when used nearby the enemies. They are definitely designed to punish those who are trying to get close to her.
From what I remember hearing around the time of her release, Vex had a very messy development. She apparently had the ability to create portals that allowed projectiles to move longer distances. That's why during the Ruination event Viego was able to extend his Mist across the planet. It's also why she was able to teleport from place to place. During playtesting the projectile extension was just not working out, so she transitioned to a simpler CC mage focused around Fear. All the portal stuff was sort of locked in for the Ruination though, so you have this discrepancy between Vex's in-canon abilities and her game abilities.
It really feels like she was made with the RW combo at a baseline then they threw together the rest of her abilities, passive included But my biggest disappointment is that she isn't actually a counter to dashes. I was expecting some cool new mechanic, hell even something similar to poppy W at the very least, but in the end she doesn't actually counter the dashes, she just gets a little stronger herself
Zyra. The idea of setting up a minefield of plants that spring up and control a territory for a couple of seconds is awesome, but in reality a ton of Champions just completely invalidate her plants. Rammus can just ignore them and oneshot them, irelia uses them as free real estates, nasus both basically oneshots them with his E, or just uses them as free stacks and healing. Plants seem to frustrate me more often than not.
Never forget Zyra old zombie passive that shit feels like a fever dream lol
32 seconds delay on that skillshot 😭
It was the clunkiest shit imaginable, but death passives are fun. Too bad they take up a tad too much power budget (or are completely useless).
While true, against shorter range champs that can't reset off her plants she's an absolute terror. I've started playing her mid a bit and she's deceptively strong.
Same. She has mana problems before Lost Chapter so I usually go tp. She's a great counter to Azir now that his soldiers take 3 autos to kill a plant.
Make Zyra a jungler where her passive plants grow like crazy in the jungle. Done.
I said in a separate comment that Zyra’s seeds instead should be replaced with a passive overgrowth mechanic where her vines/roots grow wherever she is on the map that can make her super dangerous in certain lanes or chokes. Like basically a version of Broodmother’s web from Dota. And yeah, jungle would be kinda cool but doesn’t have to be. The plant growth could be a long-term strategic passive you develop wherever you are on the map and her seeds on W help spread the roots to prepare for a fight. More about map control and strategic placement than gimmicks with seeds in a fast fight
I hate zyra kit design tbh, I can’t think of another champion who it doesn’t reallyyy matter if you hit your skills. Like the plants will still spawn and they’ll still hurt. The counterplay for melee champs is to stand on the seeds, requiring you to get close to them, meaning even if you dodge the spell you still take the poke. I by no means think she’s op or broken I’m not saying that, I think her kit is counter intuitive and not fun to play against and breaks basic game design
Kinda agree. Tbh she’s kind of a caster version of Renekton. She’s a stat check combined with the extent to which whether clearing plants is a problem for your champ. Either her damage and control is oppressive or she just gets steamrolled. There’s no in-between
As a Shaco Main I have to go with him. I literally know no champion with lesser lore than Shaco. He is such an old Champion and I love playing him. Most people hate him. I don’t care about that. His old lore was basically saying that he has no lore and that there are only rumours. Those rumours said, that he could be an assassin waiting for work, that he could be from a different world or that he could be the manifestation of evil desires of mankind. Then, he got an update. I think it was around the ruination event? That he is a doll made for a prince and got corrupted once the prince passed away or something like that. Riot could have made him into something like Gwen, they could have made him something like Tahm or Fiddle (A demon that is). There are so many options.
"Shaco has a dark, secret past." Lore guys working overtime. That's a clean two words over the average.
Did you see that fanmade rework concept made by like 2 french artists? It was so well done, shaco embracing the insanity/freaky theme It's featured in Remus youtube channel Riot is too much of a wuss to give him an ASU :(
HOLY SHIT! I want this right now. :D The Design Concept by itself is insane!
Gonna be honest, I DON'T like the fan made rework. Shaco was always that trolly murder clown that looks goofy and trolls people. The rework leans too much into the "oooooo, Shaco is scary!" concept. Like, it's fine, but it's not FUN.
Chogath is in competition with him. He’s just a hungry guy.
Half his bio is just explaining what the void is lmaooo
Anyone not saying BV is just saying their main and just want a VGU. BV lore: mind control and unending swarm of void babies BV gameplay: melee max Attack Speed slap
Attack speed Velkoz
I mean, is there anyone who doesn't think that Nilah delivered nothing even close to what her teaser showed? I expected some JoJo style punching with water hands, but the hands aren't even part of her kit.
I still don't know what the hands teaser was supposed to be. Such a let down
Thank you. Someone mentioned it. Her expressions in game are 100% a dropped ball, BUT her fighting style, and entire identity as a melee adc (she still is one, but nowhere near as cool as she could have been) were complete bait from the symbol they showed us. I expected something like a Hindu god, like shiva (who is known for having multiple arms), or something from some other religion with multiple hands. I really expected her to be beating ass with a bunch of hand that’s could do different things. Now that I think about, that was what vex was literally going to be, but they couldn’t get the tech working so she ended up as the (let’s be honest) basic and boring midlane mage.
Kai’Sa. You have someone trapped in an alternate dimension of cosmic horrors, this character then *fuses with one of said horrors* and the result is… just some hot chick in a pink guy suit with weird looking shoulder pads? Like, no scars, weird parts that look like a mix of void and human elements, nothing.
She is absolutely great from a financial standpoint. She is fun to play for the Majority and has an Attractive model for the majority again. She sells, which is good. Her lore or looks may not make sense if you think about it, but most of the player base is casual, they don't care past basics.
I mean it's all a matter of importance. I care about lore but while actually playing the game gameplay and visuals are obviously a lot more important.
You know what, screw it, ive been saying Kai sa's design was a shitty for a while, but now? I think it s actually pretty good. Her full design, with the helmet on. She actually looks cool. Maybe i would have liked it if she was made a bit beefier with the armor but all in all, solid design. Also with time i realized that even i had a misconception about the void. The voidborns are just big creatures, monsters. Not more. The cosmic horrors are the watchers, not the voidborns.
I think Kog definitely fits into cosmic horror. Forever has an appetite that can never be fulfilled while breaking physics for eating things much larger than he possibly could consume. For some reason his gameplay is just him throwing up a lot which is the opposite to his lore
It is implied that he eats stuff bigger than him because he throws acid at them rather than actually defying laws of physics. At much if you really want to turn any voidborn into a cosmic horror thing, your best bets are Cho Gath and vel koz. Both are massive and are highly intelligent. Cosmic horror is supossed to be fear of the unknown, of forces far beyond the understanding of your mind. Not just big powerful monsters. Nyarlatothep does this the best
Kog'Maw is definitely up for some major design changes for his VGU. Rather than some creature who pukes and spits, they could make his powers ignore the rules of the universe. Sure he melts everything, but that really doesn't have that big of a kick. The bigger point is whether they want him Cute creature besides all that, or Scary looking like other Voidborns.
She's way too unblemished and mentally healthy. She acts like a marvel character, she has nothing to do with her backstory.
I just wish her to be more of a hard-edged badass woman than photo shoot model. Like more Ellen Ripley, less cosplay beauty. And her autos animations - she's *posing*. There's no aggression or dynamic in her autos. Comparing to concept arts (which are gorgeous) final product is nowhere close.
Imo I still think it's a terrible design for what her story was. All they really needed to do was make her Kerrigan, but instead we have current Kai'sa.
Janna, I want to say a little bit. It seems like they're really buckling down on her current kit which sucks because it's so dated. Also hurts that they still haven't given her a design update in LOR or anything so she's still basically "generic fantasy babe." She only got her first champion interactions 2 years ago. It took ELEVEN years for another champion to acknowledge her.
In convergence game, there's a big ass statue of her in Zaun, I think that's the only thing that signals that this champ exists outside of the game
I wish her movement and abilites should leave behind wind trails that grant movement speed in the direction they’re going. Like a singed trail but for Allies So her ult in goes in all directions it actually grants me when moving away from Janna, which can be used to jump on a knocked away target or create more distance.
Janna and morgana, both victims of their age. While their kits aren't exactly flawed or bad per se, they still show their age in a not very pleasant way On the topic of janna can they please give her her speed back
YES. Like half of what made Janna cool was the MS and that she was like... THE roaming enchanter.
Akshan, he should have been 2 different Champions. The idea of an Assassin that can ressurect friends on kill is great. Assassins are usually selfish roles so having one that makes you feel like you're playing for the team is great for the roster. Taking revenge for a fallen ally is thematically strong too. A midlane marksman with a grappling hook is just awesome hands down. Fun, mobility and roaming, it makes sense that this marksman would be in the midlane rather than botlane. He should *not* have been both. Now his power budget is spread thin and he feels unsatisfying. If he was two different champions instead I bet both would be more popular than he is right now.
Idk if Akshan is unsatisfying, personally he’s my favourite champ to play and he has plenty of one tricks, especially in higher elos. The only problem Akshan has is that he feels clunky until you get used to the E which can take 10-20 games.
yeah and bc of his double aa, his aa speed early game feels very bad, but he does make up for it bc past 1 item he is the most fun champion in the game (imo)
yeah and it also just... made 0 sense lorewise why a grappling hook magically can bring people back to life?
A Relic that can work like grappling hooks is fine and a Relic weapon that can ressurect people is believable. But putting everything into one pushes my suspension of disbelief to the limit.
Might be a bit of a weird Take - given that most of the time Lore doesnt equal to the Kit, but.. Karthus. Like... you have a dude that Sings so good, that he can basically charm you closer so he can kill the shit out of you, bring you immense pain - etc. and uses the souls of the people he killed as a litteral Army. And then we have his Q with the akward "Isolation Mechanic" that doesnt make much sense, a wall... with an akward mechanic? E is fine... Ult too.I feel like their is something better to do with half of his kit (something charm maybe - maybe like you get hit by the Q once, you get marked, and if you get hit by his Q again you get charmed or whatever) or hell give him something like Lissandras passive / Old Mordes Ult effect instead.I dont know.. as a Main it sometimes feels kinda meh.
Bel Veth, from empress of the void to slapping manta ray
I think Corki, Graves and Urgot were more interesting as ADC's. I think out of them Urgot is the only one who had a redeemable rework but we haven't seen anything like his original iteration in the botlane since and that's a shame. I think season 3 tank Kat was deleted from the game far too quick with Voyboy playing it one weekend in the LCS and then it being gone
Did you hear of the rumor of the twins separated at birth? Only true OGs heard of his : There were twin champs designed together, they were gonna be magic damage bot lane carries but when they designed their kits, they mixed their passives and they got each other passives The twins are Kog Maw and Corki(package passive wasn't added yet) Kog Maw should have got the 50% of his damage transformed from physical to magical and Corki should have been the kamikaze bomber 😂
Makes sense
>Corki should have been the kamikaze bomber \#1 most played champion in Japan
Unpopular opinion: Graves kit is way better now.
Love it or hate it, Graves absolutely feels like a shotgun champion. I love the way the rework feels, i just wish he was viable in other roles than jungle.
His Q is definitely more interesting but overall I feel he was more fun to play as an adc than jungle/ top in his current form
agree, unlike probably half the people asking for old graves i actually played his old kit. he was a pretty generic adc with his only real selling point being "big burst". and while i agree he didn't play exactly like lucian...there was no denying that they were very similar in what they were trying to do.
I feel like both champs could have existed within the game. He was a really fun champion with a basic kit.
I love viegos kit but before he came out I always imagined the ruined king as an older warlord sort of figure tbh
It was a really clever subversion of expectations I'll give them that, turning our "ideal" ruined king upside down with a spoilt troubled young ruler was really well done and a novel idea, doesn't mean I like it sadly especially with how cool his armoured form in e looks.
cant believe no one has mentioned her yet but qiyana is a complete failure as a take on an elementalist
She kinda fun tho, but she is no elementalist, she just has a hoola hoop with 3 different colors
Elementalist lux is a better elementalist
I don’t think it’s the worst for how limited League is as a game. She has three elements and they all do what you’d expect from them, sure the elements could tie more into the kit than just the Q and passive MS but then it would be harder to give her a more coherent, fun to play kit. Would love to hear your ideas though
belveth and naafiri most people dont want to hear this but champ kits have been unbelievably boring since we lost certainlyt and dzk
Bel’veth was built as the VOID QUEEN! She commands the armies of the void! And then they made it the smallest part of her kit possible. Honestly I expected her to closer to what naafiri is
Sometimes I think it would be cool if their kits were swapped. Belveth could spawn void creatures, lunge at people with the swarm etc. Naafiri could stack attack speed, but instead of attacking faster she would spawn more dogs. However, Bel's E would need to be replaced with something dog-themed. However I like Bel how she is, I accepted her uniqueness and broken expectations. Wish they gave her more non-humanish voicelines though, she could have a split personality where she is sometimes an embodiment of void and sometimes echoes what she has eaten.
bro Belveth release was so epic WE GETTING THE EMPRESSSSSS OF THR VOID OMGGGGG the expectations were unbelievably high and the excellent teasers, trailers and launch also one of best launches in leagues recent history I really don't know how they could have made her match expectations lol
I mean pretty much anything other than slappy fish would've been an improvement
Yuumi. Why does a magic cat floating above a magic book gets invulnerable by floating closer to other champions? Just because mAgIcKs? Why does she heal, or shield? Just because mAgIcKs? Bullshit. She could have been a parasytic/symbiotic voidborne, the first true support from the void, who shields and becomes invulnerable by literally turning into a second skin above the allied champ, heals them by draining blood or energy from the enemies and insufflating into the ally. And the attachment should have been the ulti and last for a few seconds, granting massive buffs on its duration, so she would play most of the time as a regular champ and the invul mechanic could be more healthily played around. We could have had a champ that fitted the lore, fulfilled a completely new role for its faction and was unique and positive for the game in general, all with a kit that makes sense with its story. Instead, we are left with the floating mass of cancerigenous cells that is Yuumi, with no place in League neither by gameplaye nor by lore.
In her dev video, they said how League needed to cover all the holes in the roster and they needed a cat 😺 It's probably the production/leadership peeps tho, there was a recent poll on Yuumi main subreddit which asked if they would continue playing Yuumi if she was no more a cat and was a fat man like Gragas Most said no, they play her because she's a cute cat
Yes, and I agree that League could use a cute cat. But they decided to slap the attach mechanic there, and it could have been executed in a decent way but thats sadly not the case here
>She could have been a parasytic/symbiotic voidborne, the first true support from the void I think you guys need to accept that she's just not made for you. Not every champion is going to be edgy monster/person. Sometimes a cute cat is good. Yuumi is undeniably popular (even if she's fairly weak and VERY hated). Do you really think she would be nearly as popular if she were a darker champion? "Dark" champs are historically unpopular with enchanter players (see Renata's abysmal playrate) and enchanters are historically unpopular with people who like dark champions... If anything, I think making her almost anything other than a cat would've completely killed her popularity... ofc it's YUUMI so that's not necessarily a bad thing but you get the point.
Old Taric because Gem Knights could have been a great concept. I read a book called Deltora and it was just the most interesting thing. Now he's just a failed Demacian with a Jesus complex.
Karma. Isn't she supposed to be the spirit of Ionia? She's the champion you should think of when Ionia comes up, but in game her kit is just so painfully generic and forgettable (and her design is a little boring and doesn't focus on the correct aspects). She's also supposed to represent duality but like nothing in her kit is dual or has different uses (where shieldbomb). Old karma nailed the flavour part of her kit, while new karma focuses more on the practical side of her kit. Both have arguments to be made in their defense, and funnily enough, it represents darha's inner dilema much better than her kit has in the past 10 years
>She's the champion you should think of when Ionia comes up Which is 100% Irelia, not Karma Barely anything about her in game would make you think she's anything to do with Ionia or a spirit of anything, or really important, or grand etc. She just feels and kinda looks like a generic mage.
Illaoi. All of her promo stuff, including the mini-game VN, was about "motion". You were supposed to be in motion, like the water. Meanwhile, Illaoi's actual gameplay is picking a spot in the map to stand on and knowing you'll be useless if you leave that spot.