Designing a League of Legends Champion Part 4

In this post I will going through my design goals for the champion I'm designing's kit as well as showcasing the iterations it went through. The first thing I needed to do was decide on what Role and Class they would be. I initially decided that I wanted them to be able to switch between an Assassin and a Fighter that would be played in the middle lane and dealt primarily magic damage. As I am designing them for mid lane I am not giving them any sustain within their kit so that ranged champions can attempt to poke them out of lane. They would have two forms, shark and octopus. Shark form would be the assassin form that was agile and did high burst and the octopus form would be the fighter form which has less mobility but some crowd control and tank shredding potential. Each form would have unique spells. I didn't want the forms to be something you swapped between multiple times in one fight, it should be something that you commit to before the fight has started. You would start the game in shark form and not have access to the octopus form until lvl 6 where it would be your ultimate ability. When you switch forms it would set your spells on cooldown for a few seconds so that you could not use all the abilities in one form during a fight then immediately switch to the other and use that forms abilities. Instead you would have to sit out of the fight for a few seconds instead if you wanted to use the other form. This aims to make the player have to decide what role in a fight they want to take between Assassin and Fighter before the fight begins. As they would effectively not have an ultimate ability I had to make sure that the individual forms had slightly more power than a normal kit to make up for the lack of an ability.

This is the kit I ended up with:

Concept 2 kit

Passive - While in shark form champion gains truesight of all bleeding enemy champions. While in octopus form champions auto attacks deal bonus magic damage

Shark Form

Q - Straight line skillshot that only hits the first enemy unit it collides with. If the target is affected by E abilities bleed the bleed's damage becomes true damage.

W - Wide short straight line skillshot that does magic damage and knocks back any enemies hit. Any target under the effect of E abilities bleed takes extra damage from the distance travelled and then the bleed is removed.

E - Directional dash, empowers next auto attack to apply a bleed that deals physical damage and hurts the person if they move. If they use the empowered auto attack it lets them dash again but does not give them another empowered auto attack.

R - Switch to Octopus form and set all basic spells to be on cooldown for 5 seconds.

Octopus Form

Q - Extends auto attack range for 3 attacks, auto attacks slow a small amount, final auto slows for a large amount that decays and shreds resistances by a percentage.

W - Champion is rooted and channels while targeting an area, a tentacle pops up from the ground and after a delay pulls the nearest enemy in range to itself dealing magic damage, prioritizing champions.

E - Frontal cone that if it hits an enemy champion pulls you towards them and gain a shield.

R - Switch to Shark form and set all basic spells to be on cooldown for 5 seconds.

The shark form revolves around a bleed mechanic on the e ability that deals damage when the target moves. The other abilities are focused around enhancing the damage of the bleed. The passive gives truesight of bleeding champions which means they can be seen anywhere on the map and even if they are stealthed. I felt this fit the idea of a shark being able to accurately smell blood. The bleed mechanic while not in league is similar to an ability in Dota 2 I have put my own spin on it and I feel like it successfully brings across an Assassin style playstyle.

The octopus forms revolves around empowering your auto attacks and zoning areas in teamfights.

After finishing the kit I felt like it didn't feel very cohesive. The two forms felt to different from each other and were basically just two different champions. I thought that the shark form had the most interesting possibilities so I decided to try and make a new kit revolving completely around that part of the first attempt. I decided that the assassin kit might work well in the jungle as well as mid lane so I needed to try and find a way to add some sustain into the kit so they can survive early clears. I also wanted to play fully into the bleed mechanic but still let the player have options in a fight, not just an optimised single combo. Also the new kit didn't feel like it made sense doing primarily magical damage anymore as it revolved around bleeds

Concept 2 kit rework

Passive - Damage dealt to bleeding champions and monsters heals you for a percentage of damage dealt. Champion also has truesight of all bleeding enemies.

Q - Straight line skillshot that only hits the first enemy it collides with. If the target is affected by bleed its damage becomes true damage

W - Wide short straight line skillshot that does physical damage and knocks back any enemies hit. If any target hit is under the effect of the E ability bleed they take extra damage from the distance travelled.

E - Directional dash, empowers next auto attack to apply a bleed that deals physical damage and hurts the person if they move. If they use the empowered auto attack it lets them dash again but does not give them another empowered auto attack.

R - Short range point and click ability that does flat physical damage to enemy champions. If the target is bleeding it does percentage missing hp damage and resets if you kill your target.

For the reworked kit I added a sustain mechanism that allows then to clear the jungle while still fitting the shark theme. The W ability now no longer removes the bleed, the intention being that a large amount of the kits damage would come from the forced movement of the w causing the bleed to do damage. The new ultimate ability is meant to add final killing power but at a cost of potential safety. In order to do maximum damage the player would have to E towards and enemy, auto attack them to apply the bleed, use q the turn the bleed into true damage, w them to enable a large amount of bleed damage and then ult them if they are still alive. However if the player uses w to knock their target away they will not be in range to use their ultimate. Therefore they will have to use the second dash from their e to close the gap again in order to get the ult off. After using the second e dash they will have no more mobility options potentially leaving them in a bad position especially if they don't manage to kill their target. This should hopefully leave the player considering the risks if they want to do maximum potential damage.

At the end of this I feel like I have made an interesting and fun potential Assassin champion for League of Legends. You can check out the nicely written up design page HERE