For the first patch of 2012, Riot released a set of four skins themed around Lunar Revel, a new holiday for the League meant to mirror Chinese New Year. At least I think so. The skins seem to be Chinese themed and I don’t know many world holidays so that’s what I’m sticking with.

I won’t lie, I’m a little disappointed. I’m trying to be positive about League of Legends and just enjoy the game for what it is, especially now that I have a DotA 2 key. Having another high quality but very different MOBA experience reminds me what made me love League of Legends in the first place. But this is a pretty uninspiring way to kick off 2012.

Now granted, Riot may have all kinds of magic up its sleeves for this year. The metagame might actually shift. Who knows, it’s a brand new year. For now, the only 2012 mission Riot is willing to share with its fans is a planned tour of the globe and an exploration of the many cultures that play League of Legends. While I do think that kind of stuff is cool, it ultimately feels like more fluff in a game that hasn’t changed much in a very long time.

The patch also included some small Viktor buffs. His augments cost 200g less and he got some timing and mana reworks. It’s a nice little tweak to the champion that should hopefully make the Viktor-inspired players out there happy.

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.

As I’m sure you know by now, Riot’s next champion for League of Legends is Viktor, the Machine Herald. We’ve had the sneak peek comic, we’ve had some leaked information about his skillset, but nothing comes close to this video from IGN. The guys doing commentary aren’t particularly clear on a few points about Viktor’s mechanics, but on the whole it’s a pretty nice look at the next LoL champion.

The most interesting part of Viktor’s kit is definitely his passive, which gives Viktor an item from level one. The item can be upgraded in the shop to augment one of his abilities. I think this could be a cool mechanic, particularly if Viktor fulfilled some interesting role on a team, but in this instance I think this will mostly be a matter of which augment is functionally best, not necessarily which augment the player likes best. As for his position on a team, Viktor seems to fall under the general tanky DPS/utility that many of the recent releases have seen. He does seem to lean a little more to the mage side of things, but with a shield and a speed boost, he seems like most Tanky DPS today.

I’ll have more thoughts about his kit tomorrow. For now, enjoy the video.