What’s up guys it’s me Jeremy!
You guys seemed to really enjoy us talking about some of the champions that Rioters have
expressed a desire to rework, and although we can’t possibly cover all of them right
now since that list is probably 30-40 champions long, we can definitely do our best to talk
about some of the most promising candidates based on the Rioter quotes available so far.
The first champion we want to dive into today is Volibear,
a champion that Riot Reav3 has confirmed to be in need of a full scale visual and gameplay
update, which shouldn’t really come as a surprise to anyone.
In terms of art, he’s definitely outdated—although the Police Volibear skin did arguably breath
some life back into him, his model and other skins could use a bit of attention.
He’s pretty comparable to the previous Warwick, they are both bestial champions with a focus
on engaging fights, and they both had pretty underwhelming appearances considering that
primal nature.
Warwick’s rework not only gave him a more interesting kit, but it really made his in-game
design pretty impressive and that’s the same treatment that Riot will intend to give
Volibear.
When it comes to gameplay, things get a little worse; unlike Warwick, Volibear doesn’t
really have a defined strategic niche.
Warwick was the go-to jungler for beginners thanks to his simplicity, and he was the ‘level
6 lockdown’ pick, making him a pretty imposing figure in the mid game.
On the other hand, Volibear is half-tank half-juggernaut, although he can’t do either job as well
as other champions in those roles.
In addition, his theme as this mystic leader who commands the power of lightning has not
been capitalized on at all by Riot—four of his five abilities do reference lightning,
but only one of them has any actual lightning element to it, and even then it’s just a
glorified bear claw to the face.
Riot has an opportunity with Riot to give Volibear a true strategic niche while also
building more on this idea that he’s a warrior mystic and leader of a bear clan, while actually
giving him some more lightning-themed powers to make him actually feel like a fully fleshed
out champion.
Dr Mundo is up next, and he’s apparently pretty high on the priority list for a full
VGU—so we’ll likely see this one before Volibear.
Reav3 explains that there’s two main camps when it comes to VGUs.
Some champions like Warwick and Eve were in the ‘modernization’ camp where it’s
more about bringing them up to Riot’s current standards, and some like Galio and Sion are
almost like complete remakes.
Mundo is an incredibly recognisable champion with a strong theme as the ‘Hulk’ of League
of Legends, but currently his gameplay in particular is pretty uninspired.
The most exciting parts of his kit are his spammable cleavers, and his habit of running
around and regenerating all the damage he takes.
He actually has a pretty strong background too, as a strange purple child with a seemingly
infinite pain tolerance and the power of fast healing.
The lore paints a pretty interesting picture for Mundo—apparently he enjoyed being tested
by the doctors at Zaun’s own version of Arkham Asylum, despite the fact that they
were routinely torturing him.
This went on to the point where he decided out of respect that he would be called a Doctor
too, and starting chopping up other patients with a meat cleaver.
Clearly the guy is insane, but that’s a pretty original backstory and has a ton of
potential for Riot to play with.
Right now we see a reasonable amount of cohesion to his kit—there’s a focus on his cleaver
in his Q and E, his regeneration in his passive and R, and in his pain tolerance with his
W, but none of these things make for particularly exciting gameplay unless you’re the type
of person to really enjoy spamming one ability for an entire game.
We’re hoping that Mundo’s rework doesn’t really change that background, but really
focuses on bringing his visual assets and gameplay to another level to make him into
the seriously imposing character that he should absolutely be.
Dr Mundo won’t be happening extremely soon though, as Riot have said they want to take
a break from Zaun-themed champions, but we imagine we’ll hear more about this rework
next year.
Our next two champions are Wukong and Diana, as they were intended to be major reworks
during the cancelled Diver class update.
Reav3 confirmed they are both still on the list, but the prioritization hasn’t really
been decided yet.
Starting with Wukong, he’s actually in a lot better condition than a lot of the other
champion’s we’ve discussed.
His art is pretty iconic, his skins all look reasonably good and his gameplay does have
a pretty well defined strategic niche.
Like other divers, the core of his gameplay is of course getting in close and kickstarting
a teamfight with his Ultimate, but unlike the other Divers he also has some of the mindgame
potential of champions like Shaco.
Decoy is a super interesting ability because it gives him a choice of whether to use it
defensively or offensively, and it doesn’t have any damage attached to outside of cooldown
it can’t really be overpowered or underpowered—it’s all about how you use it.
The biggest issue with Wukong is his binary nature; he’s very much a point-and-click
character that isn’t really specialized in any particular way.
In addition to that, he’s a pretty snowbally champion so if you struggle to find success
early on, it can be hard to be effective in the late game.
Hopefully Wukong’s rework will give him a few more tools to allow him to skirmish
a bit more, which will hopefully make him see play less as an assassin and more as a
true fighter.
Diana on the other hand is quite different from the other divers, simply because she’s
a mage rather than an AD fighter like most of the others.
Although that’s a pretty key niche, the issue is that her design is incredibly simple.
That’s a good thing for some roles, such as mages or tanks, but for a diver there needs
to be clear ways to pick fights and outplay your opponents.
As with Wukong, Diana’s kit is pretty simple for a diver, and since her damage is all flat
any buffs would make her pretty overpowered.
That means the best way to update Diana is with the addition of some more interesting
strategies, and hopefully less of a reliance on her Q to get value out of her Ultimate.
Riot had initially intended for Diana to be an AP Fighter rather than an assassin, and
the best way to deal with this is to give her kit some complexity outside of the crazy
flat early game damage, and perhaps some new ways to benefit from enemies marked by her
Q’s Moonlight.
Next up is Jax.
Unlike Wukong and Diana, Jax’s simplicity is core to his playstyle.
Although he can be played as an assassin, traditionally he is a fighter, and having
a simple kit allows him to stay in a reasonably healthy position between patches without ever
really becoming too weak or too dominant.
This causes the same issue as Diana when it comes to balance tweaks though—buffs or
nerfs would totally disrupt the champion balance, meaning they have to redefine who Jax is with
a rework, or leave him alone entirely.
Reav3 mentioned that Jax is a Tier 2 priority, although there is potential for a Tier 2 priority
to be reworked before Tier 1 picks if a really cool idea is suggested.
The same goes for Tier 1, it’s not like Riot are going to force production on a champion
if they have no ideas about what to do with them, it’s just in that case Tier 1 champions
will be chosen first.
In Jax’s case, his visuals and theme are likely to be the main target of the update,
since he’s been around without much in the way of visual improvements for a long time,
and changing the idea of Summoners and the Institute of War does a lot of damage to Jax’s
background.
In terms of his gameplay, it’s not clear whether Riot want to keep Jax relatively binary
or introduce new complexity, but it’s worth noting that binary champions do function better
as fighters than other roles, so there’s potential for them to keep him pretty simple.
Our last champion to discuss today is actually a pair of champions; Morgana and Kayle.
Their backgrounds are linked directly, to a much greater degree than simply ‘allies’
or ‘enemies’ like other champions, so it makes sense that updating the story of
one means updating the other.
That’s given Riot the idea of giving them a joint update, although that doesn’t mean
they will both be receiving attention in the same areas.
Reav3 mentioned that Morgana is actually in a pretty good spot and probably just needs
some theme and art updates, with little to no gameplay changes.
On the other hand, they think Kayle is due for a full scale VGU, although they haven’t
shared any plans or details just yet.
Most players seem to expect it to be heavily focused on her visuals with just minor gameplay
changes, but Riot may also plan to push her away from her generalist role into more of
a specialist niche.