In preparation for the Monkey King’s release, Riot put together a preview video of his abilities and mechanics. Wukong is a melee DPS that looks as though he’ll be most effective building tanky. He also has enough mobility that I could see him working well as a straight damage dealer. Before I get into too much discussion about his skills let’s take a look at his kit.

Stone Skin: Wukong gains armor and magic resistance the more enemies are nearby .

Crushing Blow: On next hit, Wukong deals extra damage and decreases the armor of his target.

Decoy: Wukong goes invisible and leaves a decoy in his place. After a short delay, the decoy spins, dealing damage to nearby targets.

Nimbus Strike: Wukong dashes to an enemy champion and deals damage. If there are multiple targets in the area, Wukong will make up to two decoys that will also dash to nearby targets.

Cyclone: Wukong spins to win, dealing damage in an AoE and knocking up enemy units caught in the cyclone.

I’m not sure what it is, but I’m having a serious case of champion fatigue with Wukong. He doesn’t seem to bring anything that the League really needs and I think he has the potential to be brutally overpowered. Leona was exciting because she looked like a return to sanity with regard to tanks. Wukong looks like just about every other melee DPS out there. Dash? Check. Armor Debuff? Check. Knockup or stun? Check, and some invisibility for good measure.

In all seriousness, I think his kit poses some pretty serious laning problems. The dash -> invisibility combo will allow him to harass from range without any personal risk. If Nimbus Strike deals decent damage, it could also give him the ability to withstand 2v1 lanes without any trouble. I’m also curious to see whether his ult can knock targets in the air multiple times or just once. My guess is just once.

I think it’s odd that they would give a persistent damage ult to a melee character with a dash skill. When the enemy has Flash up, it will probably often feel like a wasted ult. If their Flash is down, though, he’s going to be impossible to avoid, which poses some real balance problems. Garen’s spin remains somewhat balanced only because he has to run to get to you, and even then it can deal a frustrating amount of damage. With Wukong, the spin will probably be on a much longer cooldown, which probably means it will deal significant damage. If that damage is balanced around the thought that some ticks will miss, I think we’ll see a lot of Wukong QQ on his release.