Tag: new champion (Page 5 of 8)

Patch Day 7/17: An OP champion approaches

July 27, 2010 / Jeff Morgan

It’s patch day once again folks, this time heralding the release of Vladimir, the League’s first true vampire champion (sorry, Eve, kicking people with spiked high heels makes you ridiculous, not vampiric). This patch is also highly anticipated because of the Xin Zhao nerf.

First things first, let’s talk about Vladimir. I am nervous as hell about his position in the game. Any time you give a toon the ability to increase multiple stats by buying one item, I’m concerned. That was (and to some extent continues to be) the problem with Jax, and it will almost definitely be a problem with Vladimir. If you haven’t seen his Champion Spotlight yet, you should. It’s a little unnerving to see how early he can ignore towers and just how much damage he can deal with literally zero ability power.

The other big news is the Xin Zhao nerf. His attack speed scaling is getting a serious reduction, the AOE on his slow has been significantly reduced as has the magnitude of the effect, and his ult got a 20 percent reduction in percent-based damage and a slight nerf to base damage. He’ll still be disgustingly strong, mostly because his mana costs are so low and the fact that his ult is always up from the Battle Cry synergy.

The rest of the champion changes are either bug fixes or very minor. Kog’Maw, of all champs, got a small range nerf to his Bio-Arcane Barrage and a bit of a buff to Caustic Spittle. Comparing him to someone like Xin Zhao it seems ridiculous that his mana costs are still so high. Heimer got a little grenade nerf and Shaco took a small Deceive CD nerf. I don’t think either change will be enough to bring them off the permaban list, but with Vladimir almost undoubtedly filling one of those spots we might see a little more variety.

Other than that this patch is pretty unremarkable. My guess is Riot wants to wait out Season One a little longer to see which champions need a shift.

Champions, league of legends, Patches

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Vladimir is on release notice

July 23, 2010 / Jeff Morgan

The latest in a string of culturally themed heroes is officially on release notice. Riot posted the “new champion approaches” post for Vladimir this afternoon, offering a cursory look at his skills and what looks to be his splash screen.

Here’s the ability list:
Transfusion: Vladimir drains the lifeforce of his target, dealing magic damage and healing himself for 25% of that amount.

Sanguine Pool: Vladimir sinks into a pool of blood for 2.5 seconds, becoming untargetable and slowing enemies above him. Vladmir deals magic damage to targets above him and heals himself for 15% of that amount.

Tides of Blood: Vladimir unleashes a torrent of blood, damaging surrounding enemies. Additionally, multiple Tides of Blood in a short period of time cause them to cost additional health and deal additional damage, and increases his healing and regeneration by 8%.

Hemoplague (Ultimate): Vladimir infects the target area with a virulent plague increases the damage they take for 5 seconds. After 5 seconds, infected enemies take magic damage.

Crimson Pact (Passive): Bonus health gives Vladimir bonus ability power, and every bonus ability power gives Vladimir bonus health (does not stack with itself).

Unlike my original assumption, Vladimir’s resource system is his health (no crazy new crap to deal with). I wish I had more impressions about his skill list but it’s so hard to say how he’ll play without numbers and costs and all that. I thought Xin Zhao would be fun, but I had no idea he would have such low mana costs and such ridiculous damage output.

Champions, league of legends

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Champion Sneak Peek: Vladimir

July 23, 2010 / Jeff Morgan

Amidst the tumultuous Season One release, Riot is still sticking to its frequent roll-out of new champion ideas and designs. The latest is Vladimir, the long-rumored vampire champion.

Here’s the official word from ByronicHero:

If you’re like me and you’ve ever gone through one of those dark, goth phases at some point in your life, you’ll probably relate to this next champion at least a little bit. Meet Vladimir, the Crimson Reaper. This champion combines the epic power of fueling his magic with the blood of his enemies with the style and flair of Transylvanian count. You know the type of count we’re talking about… the type that has a lifetime supply of liquid black eyeliner sitting in his medicine cabinet. So dust off that copy of Bram Stoker’s Dracula that you’ve got sitting on your nightstand. If you start reading now, you should be super excited by the prospect of getting your hands on Vladimir by the time you finish.

I could be crazy, but it sounds an awful lot like Vladimir could be using yet another new resource system. Will we be seeing a range of vampiric toons, similar to the trio of ninjas?

Development

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Who was your first champion?

July 12, 2010 / Jeff Morgan

There’s a thread running in the forums right now about the first champion a player chooses. With Season One right around the corner, it seems appropriate to take a look back at where we all came from.

Personally, I activated my LoL account sometime in early December and have been playing since. I want to say my first game was with Jax, but it may have been Kassadin. I can’t seem to find the email, but I remember writing to the two guys that got me into the game about how much I liked Kassadin. Coming from DotA, I thought, “Hey, it’s Magina! I’ll build him just like that.” So I went all out and bought a Wit’s End (maybe two – yikes) to try to burn down the other player’s mana and keep up my ability to Rift Walk. It worked at the time, even though it probably shouldn’t have.

Where did you guys get your start? Any champions you used to love that have fallen from grace? Anyone remember when it seemed like Yi could hit 6 and rock an entire team?

league of legends

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And the next hero IS…another melee champ [Xin Zhao]

July 2, 2010 / Jeff Morgan

Riot’s announced the newest hero by way of a Dev Diary at PC Gamer and it looks like we’re getting yet another melee character. Despite that little setback, Xin Zhao sounds pretty interesting and has the thing that, in my mind, sets good melee apart from the bad: a way to close the gap.

The actual information about Xin Zhao is pretty limited. He’s a martial-arts-inspired spear wielding fighter with some kind of initiation power and a slow. Zileas put it this way:

We came up with this design build because we wanted to capture the spirit of the free-moving fighters you might see in martial arts films. Xin can move freely about the battlefield, drawing power from attacking his enemies, so he can act as an initiator and maybe even as a tank, while still able to deal lots of damage very quickly. One problem we struggled with was how to make Xin Zhao able to initiate but not be a full tank. We tried a number of iterations on this, trying out different defensive components to his Audacious Charge and ultimate. In the end, I think we came up with a really strong build that our players are really going to enjoy.

As for his abilities, this is all we know so far:
Three Talon Strike: (cornerstone ability) A series of attacks that culminate in a powerful move that inflicts considerable damage to his opponent.
Unnamed ability: Increases his attack speed and causes all of his attacks to cool down his other abilities much faster than they normally would.
Audacious Charge: Quickly charge an opponent and slow them down.

Not the best descriptions in the world, but it is nice to see that he’ll be able to jump into a fight from a distance, a key component to keeping melee from going the way of Olaf. With a gap closer and a slow, he pretty much fits my criteria for a solid melee champion. He also has built-in attack speed increase, which gives some item flexibility for damage or survivability.

Perhaps the biggest news of the article is that Xin Zhao will launch with Season One. A lot of people are speculating that S1 is close, but I think it could be as late as the second half of July, if only because I don’t want to get my hopes up. From the sound of this article, Xin Zhao is pretty much done, but then why not list his other two abilities? Then there’s the holiday weekend to consider, though development schedules often ignore that kind of time off and offer comp time after major features launch. It really could go either way. I’ll err on the side of caution and cast my vote for the week of the 18th. Prove me wrong, Riot. Prove me wrong.