What better way to make my return to the MOBA field than with my impressions post for the newest champion in League of Legends? I’ll tell you. DotA 2. Yes, I’m finally in the beta, but more on that later. For now, let’s talk about the man-machine, Viktor.
You may remember Morello announcing that Riot had plans to introduce more complicated heroes and mechanics into League of Legends over the course of 2012. Viktor seems to be the first of that wave, adding a new item-based skill customization along with a somewhat complicated skillset. While I love the idea of adding more complexity to the game, the actual gameplay needs to support mechanically complex heroes. With Viktor, that just isn’t the case. Hopefully we’ll see more playstyle changes to League as a whole. If not, complex heroes will simply be outshined by champions like Annie and Brand, champs that deal huge damage through a simple set of skills.
Personally, I haven’t enjoyed my time with Viktor, pretty much for the reasons stated above. His skills are too complicated to use without enough benefit for using them well. I feel like I have to work twice as hard for kills that would be easier with many other champions. That’s not all bad – champions with a decent skill ceiling are usually enjoyable to play. In most cases, though, high skill ceiling means knowing when and how your skills should be used, not just that it’s difficult to land them. That’s Viktor. His beam can be very difficult to land in a chase situation – it’s certainly easy to avoid – and without augmenting his stun, he can be pretty easy to outrun.
That said, he has some insane burst. When all of his skills land, he hits hard. His ult works essentially like Tibbers, dealing a big burst in the beginning and a damage over time as it “churns.” With an augment on his beam, he’ll one-shot most any carry.
I don’t think Riot’s going to need to change him much unless a streamer unlocks a truly godlike build/playstyle. Viktor does things that a lot of other champions in the game do, it’s just that all of those things – his stun, his big damage, his AoE power – require a lot more effort than similar champions. He’s also just not all that exciting, which is why I think I haven’t seen him picked much. If I compare him to Fizz, I see one champion with an interesting skillset that adds a couple new mechanics and has a high risk/reward threshold, and one champion that plays like most AP casters. I’ll leave you to sort out which is which.
Posted in: Champions, league of legends
Tags: lol, new champion, viktor, viktor build, viktor guide, viktor impressions, viktor op, viktor skills, viktor up
I suck with him, and I’m not happy about that. That ray is hard to land, makes him move around weird half the time. His R, I’m still trying to figure out.
I haven’t hit that “one shot most carries” part.
I find his ray pretty easy to land most of the time,but the most annoying thing is the delay on the stun.Not talking about the 1.5 seconds of slow before the stun,but the time it takes for the device to deploy,where it doesn’t even apply the slow.That kinda makes it more useful for zone denying or defensive use,and is way more hard to use offensively.
You make a great point about the delay on the stun. I think I expected it to play more like Veigar’s cage, which drops nearly instantly. The deploy animation definitely makes the skill difficult to use offensively. That could be part of what I find unappealing about the character. I like to play offensively, setting up ganks and fighting as often as possible. With Viktor that feels much harder to pull off reliably.
Forgot to type my name earlier.
I think the reason for the slow stacks and the deploy delay is for balance reasons,because I think it’s the biggest non ultimate stun in the game.
Even so,it’s pretty satisfying when you manage to escape a 5 man gank and leave them all frozen.