Late last night Riot posted the skillset for Xerath, the next champion to be added to the League. As I mentioned previously, Riot has scrapped the “increased-mana-cost/power-per-cast” model for Xerath and instead turned him into a sort of mini-turret.
Let’s take a look at the skills:
Ascended Form (Passive): Xerath feeds on arcane power, making him increasingly resilient to physical harm. He converts a percentage of his Ability Power into Armor.
Arcanopulse: Fires a long-range beam of energy, dealing magic damage to all targets hit.
Locus of Power: Xerath anchors himself to source of magical power, increasing the range of all spells and granting him bonus % Magic Penetration. Although he is immobilized while Locus of Power is active, his movement speed increases upon disabling the ability.
Mage Chains: Deals magic damage to an enemy and marks them with Unstable Magic. The next spell Xerath strikes this enemy with stuns them.
Arcane Barrage: Calls down a blast of arcane energy, dealing magic damage to all enemies in an area. May be cast up to three times before going on cooldown.
It’s a little strange to see a return to the gold-multiplier passive that we’ve seen on so many other characters, but hopefully the fact that he’s converting AP to armor will be better than the AP to HP we’ve seen in the past. I’m sure I’ll have more thoughts on this once I actually get my hands on him.
Actually, that’s how I feel about essentially all of his skills. The descriptions are, as usual, a little vague. All we know at this point is that he’ll be highly durable and able to attack from extreme range. I’m definitely interested to see how Riot keeps it balanced, if it can be. I can see Rod of Ages being absolutely devastating on Xerath. If his base damage while outside of Locus of Power is too high, he’ll smash enemy DPS while still competing with enemy casters by using Locus of Power to avoid their spells. It’s a strange mix of abilities to give a caster.
We should know more next week.
