Bami Cinder's
champion reworks
I'm a game designer who likes to make League of Legends champion reworks for fun! Focusing on improving their gameplay fantasy.
All credit for the art of the champions used on this website goes to Riot Games and the talented artists who brought these champions to life.
about legal stuff
Usage Statement
On this website I, Bami Cinder create fan concepts and champion reworks inspired by
League of Legends for the purposes of entertainment and creativity.This statement is provided to assure the community and Riot Games
that I have no intention of pursuing legal action should Riot Games decide to use,
get inspired by my ideas, or independently develop similar ideas or concepts.However, I do appreciate recognition and respect for my work. If Riot Games chooses to use my ideas or finds inspiration in them, proper attribution or acknowledgment would be welcomed.Furthermore, I'm open to collaboration with Riot Games. I'm eager to contribute to the League of Legends universe by sharing ideas, engaging in discussions, and providing feedback to make the game even more amazing. Please feel free to reach out to me.
"Everything I say is waterproof! Or if not, water-absorbent!"
Item Reworks
Scout's Slingshot
With these changes, I tried to achieve:
Better gold value
Feels good to proc
Good for short trades (in lane)
Reward active play
Have Kiss/Curse design
With these changes Scout's Slingshot would be between:
66.67% (without passive) - 138.89% (if passive is active) gold efficient.The buildpath would be two daggers.
All credit for the art of the items used on this website goes to Riot Games and the talented artists who brought these items to life
shard of the monolith
malphite
REwork
Reworked Abilities
Why a rework?
Why does Malphite need a rework? Well this is just my personal opinion, but below I have listed a number of reasons to support my opinion.
Underwhelming gameplay fantasy
At the moment, Malphite’s gameplay fantasy isn’t really exciting. Right now, his gameplay fantasies (in my opinion) are:- hitting a big ult on multiple enemies and winning a team fight because of it- going against a full AD team and out scaling them.The last one isn’t even a fantasy the player can control, so it isn’t really a strong one. The lack of a clear gameplay fantasy is of course logical, since Malphite is an old champion and the designers at Riot didn’t really work with gameplay fantasies back then.With all that said, I think there is a lot to improve here.
Toxic Meta Champion
Malphite has almost always been a rock solid champ, mostly because of his utility and ultimate. But the last years he has crumbled in popularity and winrate, excluding the last few patches.The moments that I have known Malphite to be meta, I have seen him as a toxic meta champion (again my opinion). I have seen Malphite as an extremely safe Q + Arcane Comet poking top laner that can safely wait until he can win fights by using his ult in (team)fights. Which is quite toxic to play against in my opinion.Or he is just straight over buffed, like he has been the last couple of patches. Where he just out stats most champs and again still has huge impact in team fights because of his ultimate. This is of course very fun to play, but not fun to play against.
Underwhelming kit (excluding his ult)
In my opinion, Malphite’s ult feels amazing and is one of the strongest ults in the game. This however may be the cause to why the rest of his kit is underwhelming. Hitting an enemy with a Q, auto attacking a champion with W or slamming the ground with E aren’t really the most dopamine inducing abilities. I think this is also the big reason why Malphite is a toxic meta champion. Since his base kit needs to be overbuffed to keep up with the newer champions and their more modern designs. But in combination with his ult, it makes him broken.I think taking some power from his ult (but keeping it groundbreaking) and giving some more power and feel good moments to the rest of his kit would be a healthy change.
Shard of the Monolith
Shard of the MonolithIt’s important that the gameplay fantasy of Malphite becomes stronger and is clearly defined for this rework. For this I looked at the current lore of Malphite which I think is quite interesting. Thus, my goals for Malphite’s new gameplay fantasy is for, playing Malphite, to feel like playing as:
“A sentient shard of a magical Monolith that is trying to put itself back together by collecting other pieces of itself and growing into an unstoppable behemoth.”
This is something that I will try to accomplish by adjusting Malphite’s current gameplay.
Rock Solid Design Pillars
The gameplay fantasy isn’t the only thing I will have to take note of. Before I began coming up with flashed out abilities, I first needed to set clear goals for what I wanted to accomplish with his rework. What would be the goals and limitations for his abilities? I split these goals over four pillars.
Keep the Rock Simple
The most essential pillar for me was to keep the simplicity of Malphite’s original kit and keep Malphite as a simple champion (especially since I tend to make things too complicated). Therefore, my goals were:
The skill for players to perform mechanically on Malphite should be minimal
Skill max order should be extremely clear: Q => W => E and should in most cases be the optimal order for players
The order or combo in which the player needs to use its ability should mostly be the same for most situations, making it easier to learn
Easy to Learn, a Little Harder to Master
Another important pillar for me was to give Malphite’s kit a little more depth, but still keeping it simple. For me, a great example of this has always been the Q from Warwick. It’s simple to use, yet by timing it right, you can make huge outplays by following your target's dashes, blinks or even teleport. My gameplay goals here are:
Add some skill expression into Malphite’s kit for advanced players, without making it essential for playing Malphite
There can be alternative uses for abilities, like using ult to escape, ...
The AP one-shot build should still be viable, but should be a little more skillful (putting Big AP scaling on abilities that are harder to hit). Making it less frustrating to play against
This way, Riot would also have more options for balancing around both low and high elo. Since if Malphite is too strong in low elo they can shift more power to the more skill expressive parts of Malphite and reverse.
Unstoppable Force
As I have said before, I want to make Malphite’s basic abilities to have a bigger impact. These are my goals for this pillar:
Shift some power from his ultimate towards the rest of his kit
Make his abilities feel more like a colossal sentient rock is performing them (this is mostly visual, but I try to also incorporate this idea into the abilities design)
Rock doesn’t always win
As for every champion, Malphite needs some clear strengths for the player to play around and some clear weaknesses where the opponent can play around.
Malphite’s Strengths
Anti AD & Armor Scaling Tank
Utility
Poke & Zoning
AOE impact
Short Trades
Malphite’s Weaknesses
Magic & True Damage
Armor Pen
Max HP damage
Kiting
Extended trades
Final Thoughts
With this project I wanted to reflect on my process and end result, since it was a bigger project I was quite proud of.
What is my reflection on this project?
Did I succeed? And what is the most essential part of this rework that I would be willing to sacrifice all the rest for? These questions will be answered below.
Did I succeed?
Personally, I think I came up with some very interesting ideas for a rework for Malphite. This whole rework is of course just conceptual and no doubt that there will have to be a lot of changes to make it work. But since I cannot play test these ideas, I am not able to perfect this rework.But overall I think I accomplished my set goals and design pillars for this rework (conceptually) and I personally would be very hyped about seeing it in game.
What is essential?
Lastly, I want to talk about what was the most essential part of this rework. So if you would ask me if I needed to scrap everything except one idea, it would be the new Q ability, Seismic Strike and the additional Monolith Shard part.Personally, I think that even adding this ability alone would make Malphite way more exciting. It just gives his kit way more depth, but still keeps the simplicity of its original form.
I also think it ties in well with his new scaling passive that I came up with. But I would be willing to sacrifice this if needed, since I can see how it would be harder to balance or how it could be too strong.
Published on May 4, 2023
All credit for the art of the champions used on this website goes to Riot Games and the talented artists who brought these champions to life
the magical cat
yuumi
REwork
Reworked Abilities
These videos are sketches of my ideas for a Yuumi Rework (made by Lio Agten).
For more detailed explanation of the changes, look below the design goals.
MY DESIGN GOALS
Keep her beginner-friendly
Make her play more as a playful and nimble cat
Make her a poking enchanter that specializes on primarily healing one target
Make her an ideal introduction to enchanters in league. Introducing concepts like skill shots, auto attack weaving, ....
Don't limit her to one teammate to play around but tailer more towards ADC's
Make being attached to an ally her ult
Reuse abilities, so developers at Riot wouldn't need to start from scratch
Detailed Ability descriptions
MY THOUGHT PROCESS
P - PAW-er of Friendship
With Yuumi's passive, I wanted to introduce basic attack weaving between your abilities in an intuitive way to players. Hitting abilities on enemy champions is something all players will do, so triggering the passive will be something all players experience. By increasing Yuumi's attack range, I hope it will incentivize players to scratch away at their opponents, resulting in the wanted behavior of basic attacking after a spell.
This however does not teach them to basic attack after every spell. That's why I introduced the stacking part of the passive. The value of the passive is greatly increased if you use it after getting one stack. But it still has value if you use it for two or three stacks. It gives new and inexperienced players the breathing room to use it "inefficient" but also gives way to wait out with your attacks and so you can get your claws out later.
Q - Prowling Projectile
With Prowling Projectile I wanted to achieve two things:
Introduce poking to new players
Encourage using spells to check bushes / area's without vision
To introduce poking, I made Prowling Projectile go through minions. This way it's easy for players to aim it, and they don't lose their ability because they don't know it doesn't go through minions.
I did make the projectile slow down after they hit a minion, showing to players it's not ideal to hit them. This hopefully teaches avoiding it with other champions / abilities. Prowling Projectile's lowered speed after hitting a minion also makes room for more counterplay for opponents.I also made Q reveal enemies and give vision in a small area around them. I added this in the hope that Yuumi players would use it to check for enemies in bushes or in area's they don't have vision. It is also helpful in certain bot lane matchups where getting vision in bushes can be crucial.
W - Zoomies
With Zoomies my goal was to transform Yuumi's attaching gimmick to another ability which created the same feeling of feeling nimble like a cat.I made it into a powerful movement ability that gives her an easy way to escape sticky situations and reposition. That said it is situational since and ally, preferable your Best Friend, needs to be around to use it. This way, I wanted to teach players to stay close to their allies as (an enchanter).
I also added the movement speed and empowered basic attack effects, so it also could be used aggressively to engage in fights. With the tradeoff that Yuumi doesn't have escape ability anymore.The ability also functions as a way to "select" your Best Friend. This Best Friend then gets increased healing and shielding from Yuumi's abilities. The Best Friend also receives priority for healing from her passive.
I added this to increase the Yuumi's identification as an enchanter who focuses on a single target (her Best Friend). This also made it so that I could add an AoE shield or heal ability to her kit that isn't that powerful for all her allies besides her Best Friend or if she uses it during her ult.
E - Sequential Chapters
The goal with Sequential Chapters was to transform her current ultimate, Final Chapter into a basic ability.With this ability I wanted to give Yuumi a healing ability, but I didn't want players to just spam a heal off cooldown like they did in her first iteration.
So I made the ability shield allies, but if they were already shielded it would heal them instead (like Seraphine's W). I also gave it two charges so that players could use it once to shield and then a second time to heal them. But this would sacrifice two charges of the ability, putting it on a long cooldown.This is also the only ability that AoE heals and shields allies. But I make up for it by giving it low values except for Yuumi's Best Friend, as I already said in the text about Zoomies.
R - You and Me!
My vision for Yuumi's ultimate was clear from the start. It would be the attaching mechanic that in her current state is her W. I wanted to change this into an ultimate ability because I thought that an enchanter that can be invulnerable for a long time breaks the way how the class should function. It is frustrating to play against since you can't focus the champion that is keeping the enemy team alive, which is normally the tactic against enchanters.The mechanic itself is really strong, but also super interesting and fun to play. That is why I thought it would be a good ultimate ability.
So I made attaching to an ally for a certain duration, Yuumi's ultimate ability. This alone would be a boring ultimate, of course, so I added some extra pawer.I added that Yuumi would give a shield when she arrives at the ally she would attach to. This way she gives some extra survivability to the ally so scenarios where the ally dies almost instantly after Yuumi is attached, making Yuumi lose her ultimate, are quite rare. Besides the shield, Yuumi also gets increased Heal and Shield Power and the ally, now Best Friend, gets on-hit healing.I also made her invulnerable during the dash to the ally so her ult couldn't be canceled, and she can use it as an escape. Creating the possibility to bait out enemy spells or for the enemy to bait out Yuumi's ultimate as if uses it as an escape.Lastly, Yuumi's abilities all get reset and enhanced. Making use of the unique ability to aim her Prowling Projectile with the mouse or so that the Best Friends need to position correctly to keep Sequential Chapters well positioned (like her old ultimate from her first iteration).
Base Stats
Yuumi's base stats are something I also want to address. It will be important to buff her base stats to that of a normal enchanter, since she will no longer be invulnerable for most of the game.
This way, she can more freely move around the map and play like a normal enchanter without worrying about being one shot by a Nautilus.
Heal and Shield Power Scaling
A last point I want to address are the Heal and Shield Power damage scaling on Q and E. I added them because I wanted to make Yuumi a poke threat, but I didn't want players to switch to a full AP one shot Yuumi.So I added damage scaling based on Heal and Shield Power, with which I hope to find a balance between poke damage and healing and shielding power in her kit. It should discourage players to go full AP since you don't get much extra healing out of hit, and you get damage by buying support items anyway. But there are still some AP scaling so that items like Seraph's Embrace and Dark Seal are still viable on Yuumi.
Final Thoughts
All by I all, I think that my suggested version of Yuumi would be both more interesting to play with as to play against.
Moving her attach mechanic from a basic ability to her ult makes it so that players need to interact more with the game in ways like positioning, basic attacking, placing vision, ...
Creating the opportunity to increase her "unattached" form by a lot.
It also makes it more enjoyable to play against since you can focus her now if she badly positions and only her ultimate ability makes her untargetable.I think that her new and adjusted abilities are interesting and that her kit as a whole brings something unique to the roster of League of Legends. As she would play like a poke enchanter that focuses mostly on healing one target and is as nimble as a cat!Lastly, but not unimportant, Yuumi finely needs to buy boots!
Published on October 12, 2023
All credit for the art of the champions used on this website goes to Riot Games and the talented artists who brought these champions to life
The mad man of zaun
dr.mundo
Midscope Update
Reworked Abilities
For more detailed explanation of the changes, look below the design goals.
MY DESIGN GOALS
Keep Dr.Mundo as simple as possible but still give some depth to his kit for more advanced players
Dr.Mundo should be a late game juggernaut with a vulnerable early game
Bring W to the same power level as Q. Leveling which ability will depend on matchup / team comp / play style
Make Dr.Mundo a little less damage focused (with his E) and more focused on tankiness (increased W power)
Make Dr.Mundo more risk / reward by increasing his health costs and making HP juggling more part of his identity
High skill expression should be about juggling Dr.Mundo's health do deal the most damage without dying
Give Dr.Mundo some love in the jungle by making him a bit more viable there
Detailed Ability Descriptions
MY THOUGHT PROCESS
Shimmer Passive
With Shimmer I wanted to make Dr.Mundo's regeneration more interactive and more easily countered, but also keep it as simple as possible. Since most Mundo players like the simplicity of the champion.Essentially, what the passive does is provide Dr. Mundo with increased regeneration when he damages enemy champions, which also aligns with Mundo's theme.I also gave the extra regeneration from the Shimmer passive, missing health scalings because I wanted the regeneration to be stronger when Mundo was low.
Since this is when I want Mundo to be the strongest, while still being vulnerable, because he can more easily killed. This also makes up for the increased health costs of his abilities that I added, and creates a synergy with them (health costs = more missing health). With all these changes, I hope to create more close and exiting fights with or against Mundo.Lastly, I wanted to link the Shimmer with his Goes Where He Pleases anti-CC passive. This way it can be countered and popping the canister can be a more strategic choice. Making it good for damage, but also to stop Mundo's missing health regeneration in a fight.
Q - Infected Bonesaw
Here, I tried to lower the power of Infected Bonesaw by decreasing the current health damage and increasing the cooldown and health cost.I did buff it to give some missing health healing to give Dr.Mundo a tool for juggling his health and to give it a use for in long fights or all-ins. This way, hitting your Q is still important during a fight, even when your enemy is low. But missing your Q in these close fights are also more risky because of the increased health costs.My last change with the Q is that I gave the minimum damage some bonus AD scaling. This way it has late game some more value, and it has some more value if you want to level W first. Lastly, it gives some synergy between Q and E and the fact that Dr.Mundo will have more bonus AD when he is low (see E changes) so the Q is stronger when Mundo is also low.
W - Heart Zapper
With Heart Zapper I wanted to increase its power and importance in Mundo's kit to the same power level as his Q, Infected Bonesaw.Firstly, I increase the ability level scaling of W so that players are motivated to level it as second, or maybe even as first against certain matchups.Increasing the grey health storing was the first thing I made stronger. I kept the 85% grey health storage in the beginning of the ability that were added in patch 12.23 but made the damage storage after the first 0.75 seconds scale with ability level again. I made these values even higher than before and gave it missing health scaling.I did this to make W still viable when Dr.Mundo is very low and can't really store grey health anymore to heal back up. I also made it so that Dr.Mundo's healthcost also contributes to the grey health storage. Which is handy since I also increased the health cost and made it go off per second of the ability. I did this, so players could use it reactively for a lower health cost and make it more risky to hold the ability for longer.Another small change with a sizeable impact is that W will scale (a little) with Dr.Mundo's size. I did this for a couple of reasons. Firstly so Dr.Mundo would scale with size increasing items (who are always tank related). Secondly so that it would have an interaction with Dr.Mundo's ult (in my changes, it now increases size). It also gives some extra scaling to Dr.Mundo. Lastly, I wanted to add it, so it still feels impactful even when Dr.Mundo is large. Because the AoE effect looks verry underwelming if Dr.Mundo has increased size.Another Important change I did is that I increased the damage output of Heart Zapper. I gave the tick damage some current health scaling, giving it more damage if Dr.Mundo still has a lot of health, but this way Mundo also loses more health per tick.
Also, the recast damage got some love since I increased its damage based on the grey health that is stored during the Active. I thought this would be a very satisfying way to increase its damage, since using W well results in more damage. It's also clear for the player and the opponents to see how much more damage it will do.
E - Blunt Force Truama
To make Dr.Mundo's Q & W his first maxed ability meant that his E, Blunt Force Truama should be maxed last.
I did this by reducing its cooldown to a flat 6 seconds, and its health cost also to a flat current health value.Additionally, I gave it bonus AD passive maximum and missing health scaling. This way I could increase the passives "base value", because its effectiveness was conditional (bigger value when low). This way, it wasn't necessary necessarily to put extra ability points into the ability, in the early or mid-game.
These changes also achieve that Dr.Mundo deals a little bit less damage overall since E should be maxed after Q & W. But player still have the option to level it for damage if they wanted to.The active ability was also changed so that the base damage is now higher (so level 1 E has more value). Additionally, I gave it a bonus AD scaling, so it scales with the bonus AD from its passive. This also further motivates leveling E as last, since scaling comes from getting more health. But it also opens up the possibility to some wacky AD Dr.Mundo builds for those who want to try something stupid.
R - Maximum Dosage
Dr.Mundo's reworked ult has always felt underwhelming for me in the early levels. Although, I get why they lowered its power and made it early game weaker. I still wanted to give it some love by giving it some form of utility so that it isn't just a stat buff and also, so it has some value in the early levels.So I decided to make it so Dr.Mundo removes all active debuffs from himself. I didn't want to give him a CC-Cleanse since that's something his passive already does and then Mundo would be very hard to CC if his ult is up. I thought removing debuffs like ignite, grievous wounds, armor shred, ... would all be interesting both in lane as in the late game. I also thought it fitted his ult animation where he shreds his shirt, which is handy.
Because of the ult animation, I also added a size increase. It always looked that way for me that Dr.Mundo would get bigger during his ult, but in reality his size didn't increase. This inspired me to add the size increase and link it with Heart Zapper, so there is a synergy.The ult now also has a current health cost, which is actually a buff If Dr.Mundo uses it at full health (you get more value from the missing health). If you are low it's more risky though.Giving him Shimmer when popping his ult is also something that I added, since this way you have a way to quickly restore it if your canister gets popped.Lastly, I increased the missing health scaling on the base health, since it rewards the play style I want to create with all of my changes. So to encourage Mundo players to take more risks and stay low health to deal more damage or get more value, I increased the base health increase a little.
Final Thougths
All by all, I think I suggested some interesting change that would achieve my design goals. Of course, all of this should be tested and iterated upon to really see what these changes would achieve.Also, a lot of numbers will probably have to be tweaked, especially the health costs. Maybe they need to be increased to adjust for the extra power I gave him, or maybe they are already too low. Also, the damage output of Dr.Mundo should be about the same or even lower, but maybe my suggested numbers don't achieve this. So it's important to know that these numbers are just suggestions and should obviously be tested and tweaked.
About this rework
Dr.Mundo was the first fan midscope update / mini rework that I did. I chose Mundo because I loved his old playstyle and his esthetic. I loved the rework as well, but.... I think it missed the mark on his gameplay.So I decided to take matters into my own hands and suggest adjustments that I would find interesting. I wanted to give his gameplay more depth and give some more skill expression without making him too hard to play.
Side Note
An important side note with this midscope update is that it was made shortly after patch 12.15, early August 2022. Rioter TwinEnso, who at the moment that I made this "rework", was working on adjusting/buffing Dr.Mundo, saw my post and thought I had some interesting ideas. But he said they were too complicated for "Mundo enjoyers", their target audience.Although I do think that rework still had very interesting ideas, I did not think enough about a target audience at that time. That's why I revisited it later and updated it after having some experience with other reworks.
Published on October 11, 2023
All credit for the art of the champions used on this website goes to Riot Games and the talented artists who brought these champions to life
the twisted traint
maokai
REwork
Reworked Abilities
MY DESIGN GOALS
Make Mundo more risk / reward
Keep the way to play Mundo clear and simple, but make his kit more interactive and give some interesting adjusments for advanced players
Bring W to the same power level as Q. Leveling which ability will depend on matchup / team comp / playstyle
Increase health costs for all abilities (in return for some other strengths), because it's an unique aspect of Mundo you barely notice, with the goal to make you conscious about juggeling your health (lowering health for dealing damage)
Make Mundo's laning fase and early game weaker and more vulnerable so I can make his late game fantasy stronger
Give Mundo some love in the jungle by making him a bit more viable there
About this rework
This is the first real fan rework I did for a League Champion. I choose Mundo because I loved his old playstyle, I loved the rework aswell but.... I think it missed the mark on his gameplay.So I decided to take matters into my own hands and suggest adjustments that I would find interesting. I focused on giving his gameplay more depth and give some more skill expression without making him too hard to play.
Side Note
An important side note with this rework is that it was made shortly after patch 12.15, early august 2022. Rioter TwinEnso, who at the moment I made this rework, was working on adjusting/buffing Dr.Mundo, saw my post and thought I had some interesting ideas but said they were too complicated for "Mundo enjoyers" / their target audience.Although I do think this rework still has very interesting ideas, I did not think enough about a target audience. This was something I would consider following my next fan reworks.
All credit for the art of the champions used on this website goes to Riot Games and the talented artists who brought these champions to life
the void burrower
rek'sai
Midscope Update
Detailed Ability Descriptions
MY DESIGN GOALS
Give her back global pressure, since it fits her hunting fantasy, but in a way it can’t be used for just macro plays like her old ult
Improve on the fury combo possibilities within her kit and expand them
Improve the fantasy of her ultimate
Give Rek'Sai a possibility for being useful even when behind
Give Rek'Sai some extra durability
Make Rek’Sai a Diver that feels like a mix between a bruiser and an assassin. A bruiser without great sustain or cc and an assassin without easy escape.
Make her scale with bonus AD, base AD, Health and CD to encourage bruiser like builds.
Make Burrowed form primarily utility and survivbility and unburrowed primarily damage and assassination.
Make her switch between Burrowed and Unburrowed within fights.
Reworked Abilities
MY THOUGHT PROCESS
P - Fury of the Xer'Sai
With Rek'Sai's new passive, I wanted to add some complexity to her combos. With the current Fury mechanic, you just have to auto attack three times to make her E deal double the damage in true damage. But it doesn't affect her Burrowed and Unburrowed Q, her Unburrow or her Ult.
I wanted to expand on this, so players would have different ways to approach fights, and so I ended with the Prey Stacks.With her new passive, I could empower all damaging abilities of Rek'Sai. Giving room for many combo possibilities. I added multiple empower effects that have different goals, like executing enemies (E), extended fights (Q), sniping low health enemies who escaped (Burrowed Q), more cc for sticking on enemies (W) and increasing the chance to execute with your ult (R).
The extra damage from consuming the Prey stacks that gives mostly missing health damage was added because I wanted to:
Make her passive impact her whole kit / playstyle so it's all ties together nicely
Increase her assassin playstyle but mostly for low targets.
Increase the impact from long fights because you will proc you passive more.
Reset her stacks so she can go away for a easy short trade or assassination and think about her combo for longer trades.
Make it viable in all stages of the game. Giving a way to come back if behind for players who use the passive well.
Lastly I kept the healing part of her passive and linked it to her new passive so that Rek'Sai:
Still has some sort of way to survive her escapes
Has sustain in the jungle
Has an extra reason to switch forms in a fight
All by all I think that this new passive would greatly improved Rek'Sai's combo potential, also giving opportunities for: longer fights, comebacks, sustain, …
Q - Queen's Wrath | Prey Seeker
My goal with Queen's Wrath was to give it some utility. I achieved this by adding the bonus attack speed when it gets empowered and by making it reduce the cooldown of Prey Seeker. Reducing the cooldown of Prey Seeker on hitting Queen's Wrath (and slightly increasing that of Prey Seeker) makes it so that Prey Seeker can't be spammed, denying heavy poke opportunities from Rek'Sai. But also set's up the possibility to use Prey Seeker at the beginning and at the end of the fight. With this, I wanted to create balance levers that can be used if Rek'Sai's poke would get to strong, since Prey Seeker can also proc the new passive and can be empowered, giving it some extra strength it didn't have before.Prey Seeker applies two stacks of the new passive, and the empowered Prey Seeker now deals increased damage based on the distance the projectile travelled. My goal here was to link Prey Seeker with the new passive and keep it as an important part of her combo. But also give Rek'Sai a skillful option to assassinate "escaped prey" from a distance. The damage is increased by the distance traveled since I didn't want players to use it point-blank and because that it gives two prey stacks, players are motivated to use Prey Seeker to start a fight, use Queen's Wrath to reduce its cooldown and use it again in the end of the fight if the prey runs away.
W - Burrow | Unburrow
When I was redesigning Burrow and Unburrow I didn't want to change too much. I mostly focused on increasing its use during a fight to achieve player behavior of weaving between Burrowed and Unburrowed forms. Fluency is something very important to achieve this and Burrow should be made more fluent and quicker to achieve this.
I added damage reduction to Burrow to give it some more use besides giving access to other abilities and the passive healing. The damage reduction is quite low and scales with bonus HP to make it less strong with assassin builds and stronger with bruiser builds.
Lastly, I added extra knock-up duration, damage, slow and slow duration on the empowered Unburrow, so your prey would less chance escaping. I was first hessitant on giving extra cc to Rek'Sai but looking at the combo of Rek'Sai, empowering Unburrow would be quite hard to do to start a fight. It would only be possible if an enemy already has one stack on it. This can only happen if you already have fought, and it's an extended fight or if the enemy got a passive stack because they used their ultimate. In both cases, I think it is fine to give Rek'Sai some extra cc.
E - Furious Bite | Void Tunnel
Rek'Sai's E wasn't really changed that much with my changes. I didn't touch her tunnels, although I do think they should be more fluent to use. Now it just feels awkward because when the first few seconds of the tunnel are way slower, making it feel laggy and awkward.My changes for Furious Bite were small, but not unimportant. The thing that I changed was that I increased the base damage, so that it's a useful to apply damage and a passive stack for your combo, even when it's not empowered. The increased damage from the empowered version (now with the new passive) now doesn't get doubled. Making it possible to increase the base damage and balance them separately without making the base damage too weak or the doubled damage too powerful. Doubling numbers is actually something that is very difficult to balance, as it becomes exponential.Lastly, I renamed "Tunnel" to "Void Tunnel". Since I think just "Tunnel" is a bit out of place.
¯ \ _ (ツ) _ /¯
R- Passive - Ultimate Chase
Giving Rek'Sai some of her Global pressure / fantasy back was one of my biggest goals. Since that was something that seemed to increase her popularity with the player base. It would also improve her gameplay fantasy as a huntress that hunts for her prey.So I came up with a new passive on her ult that gives her movement speed for a set duration towards enemy champions who used their ultimate, and made too much noise. She also gains tremor sense on them, even though it would be out of range normally.
This way, Rek'Sai's fantasy is increased, and she gets some global pressure that she can't use actively to achieve macro plays. Additionally, Riot could use Rek'Sai's map wide scream from her old ult to play when she levels to 6. Notifying all enemy players from the fact that they need to be silent from now on if Rek'Sai can be near. Important to note here is that the enemy players influence when they activate this, making it a reactive ability for Rek'Sai.This concept came with some problems of its own because there are champs like Udyr and Karma, so I gave it a radius and per target cooldown (like with her knock up). So that the Rek'Sai matchup isn't unplayable for those champs.Lastly, this passive also applies one prey stack onto the target, which increases / changes the combo possibilities for Rek'Sai.
R- Void Rush
Giving Rek'Sai some extra durability and increasing her ult fanatsy was one of my design goals. I give her some durability on her Burrow, but this wasn't that much.With her ultimate, I wanted to create that big monster feeling like you have with a Renekton ultimate. So I gave her extra size and stats like base AD (works well with Sterak's Gage), bonus attacks speed (works well with passive) and bonus health (extra survivability). On the condition that you killed your target with Void Rush.This way, her kit focuses even more on consuming her Prey and assassination. But it also gives her some extra survivability to escape a fight or to achieve a 2 vs 1. It also gives opertunity to Rek'Sai players to come back from behind, since it gives stats, giving you an edge even though you are behind in gold.
Final Thoughts
With my changes I think I could improve Rek'Sai's gameplay and gameplay fanatasy even further.
I made three big changes. I gave her a new passive, impacting the rest of her kit. The goal with this was to open up the combo possibilities of Rek’Sai. Since I thought the standard three Q’s into E was a bit boring.
I also gave her ult, a passive that gives her movement speed towards nearby enemies who use their ultimate and make too much noise. This way, Rek’Sai feels more like a huntress and gets back some of her old global pressure.
Lastly, I enhanced her ult so that she can consume her prey, giving her size and bonus stats. This only happens if she kills her target but gives her some extra defensiveness to escape an assassination or to turn a 1 vs 2.
Is it balanced?
I wanted to adress the fact that I mostly gave Rek'Sai more power than before. I tried to compensate this by nerfing parts of her kit (mostly CD and damage numbers). But to be fair, I know way too little about this subject to effectively compensate.Maybe my changes bring too much base value, and compensating would break other parts of her kit. This would mean that I would need to remove some parts of my change, which brings me to the next question.
What would I sacrifice?
If I had to sacrifices everything except one change, then I would keep the passive on Rek'Sai's ultimate. I think it both gives an extra way to have global pressure as Rek'Sai, which seemed to be one of the primary reasons players played the pre-rework Rek'Sai, and it improves her fantasy of being a huntress that hunts with her tremor sense. It's also a change that doesn't require the rest of her kit to change.My second choice for something to keep would be the new passive since I think it could bring much more variety and depth to Rek'Sai's kit, without drastically changing her abilities and how they work. But I do realize that it would require way more testing and effort to implement it.The rest of my changes like the ult changes and W damage reduction are things I think could be very interesting, but I would be willing to sacrifice if they didn't turn out well or there isn't any power budget for them.
Published on October 24, 2023
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