What’s up guys it’s me Jeremy!
Riot has been pumping out tons of reworks lately, but there's a lot that goes on behind
that scenes that we don’t always get to see.
Sometimes that means reworks that ended up cancelled, but it could also mean reworks
that were iceboxed to be worked on in the future instead, so we’ve done some research
as always and made a list of them!
And just before we start I want to give a huge shoutout to audible.com for making this
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And without further adue let's jump back into the video!
First up is Jayce, who was actually in the process of getting a rework by Riot Xypherous.
The Jayce rework was was actually taken out of Xypherous’s hands though, because apparently
he was getting so carried away with the update that he went way outside of the scope of fixing
Jayce’s annoying problems, and kinda started trying to totally reinvent the wheel with
him.
He mentioned on the Riot forums that although the design goal for Jayce’s rework was meant
to be about stopping him instantly 3 shotting you and removing all the frustration that
comes with it, Xypherous ended up trying to totally re-approach how a transform champion
should function.
He actually mentioned a few of the changes he wanted to implement at the time, including
a total redo of his melee form W, and really messing with his mana costs like making his
Melee Q cheap as hell but his Melee E crazy expensive.
He also had the idea to do away with the Ultimate levels and give Jayce a sixth rank in his
other abilities too, which was actually quite cool and ended up being used.
The problem was that the changes Xypherous had suggested didn’t actually fix the issues
Jayce had.
They were interesting, but he was just going a bit crazy with it, so Riot took the project
away from him.
A light version of this rework did eventually go through in Patch 5.11, using Xypherous’s
idea of taking away his Ultimate ranks to remove the feel bads of levelling up a kinda
pointless ability, to give him an extra rank in each of his basic abilities instead.
It definitely made Jayce a bit more unique as a champion, but for a cool concept like
swapping between ranged and melee, Jayce is probably a good choice for a proper rework
at some point.
Next up is Olaf, who was actually considered to be reworked along with the Juggernauts
because Riot do consider him a Juggernaut as well.
The rough idea was that instead of a normal Ultimate, Ragnarok would be this event that
when it started, it would keep getting more intense right up until the game ends.
It was kinda more thematic considering the ability is named after this Norse god apocalypse
type deal, but the ideas for how it would work were just INSANE.
Stuff like when Olaf hit level 18, all champions on the
map would constantly have their current health reduced by a percentage every second for the
rest of the game.
That’s just as crazy as it sounds, and although Riot scrapped the idea, Riot Repertoir said
his only regret was not getting to see it in action.
Honestly I wanna see this at least once too, maybe Riot could release an Apocalypse gamemode
where stuff like that happens as the game goes on, and it just gets more and more out
of hand.
C’mon, you guys know that would be fun.
Udyr is third on our list, and there’s not actually a ton of info available on the rework,
all we have is one quote from Repertoir that basically confirmed it was in development.
He mentioned that Udyr was also considered for a rework during the Juggernauts update,
and at one point he was spawning crazy additional neutral monsters.
We’re really not sure how that would work, but considering in the lore Udyr lives between
the world of men and the spirit world and can tap into the animal spirit’s powers,
maybe he could do awesome stuff like summon spirit wolves and razorbeaks.
That would make a ton more sense if they attacked for him, rather than being neutral though..
I dunno, your guess is as good as mine.
Not really sure where Riot was going with this one and if it would even still be a Juggernaut
at the point, but I guess that’s why it was scrapped!
Besides, as far as spawning minions go, Yorick should definitely be getting first pick, that
guy really needs some love.
Another one with just one quote proving its existence, Repertoire mentioned that a while
ago Riot had been playtesting a reworked Shaco prototype actually.
So the Shaco rework is clearly meant to be tricksy because he had this skill where he
would blink out of existence and be replaced with a missile, and Shaco would reappear when
the missile ended.
Well the story goes that during that playtesting period, they were also testing out Yasuo’s
Wind Wall, before they actually coded it properly, they just kinda throw the thing together.
Another playtesting used Shaco’s vanish into missile thingie and fired it at Repertoir,
so Repertoir went to Wind Wall it to block the missile.
Well, he got more than he bargained for and Shaco
never reappeared - he was just randomly removed from the game somehow.
Man, things like that are so funny, it makes you wish you were a playtester for Riot so
you could see all the ridiculous things that happen first hand!
Last but not least and DEFINITELY in need of a rework, Riot pls, is Aatrox.
We found out about this one from a Riot playtester called Gentleman Gustaf, saying that they
playtested a rework for Aatrox but it was iceboxed for a later date, and they decided
it was better to update him during a roster update rather than giving him an individual
champion rework like they did with Ryze.
Reav3 confirmed this too, saying that Aatrox’s rework won’t be quite different enough to
merit being an individual rework - so although we don’t know what they’ll change, we
do know that sometime in the future he’ll get some much needed updates.
I suppose that means he’d be in the Fighter Update, since that class kinda defines him
best, unless they plan on reworking him into a slightly different playstyle of course!
His main theme is always gonna be the lifesteal stuff, but aside from that he doesn’t really
have anything original or a niche to fill, so they might even give him a little gimmick
like they did for the Juggernaut reworks, something to make him have more of an effect
on the game.
That could be a cool way to actually give people a reason to pick Aatrox, at least.
Okay I know I said Aatrox was last but more like the last champion, because Riot also
tested a stealth rework back in 2012 actually.
Riot Coronach said that someone had a good idea that they wanted to experiment with in
terms of making stealth more fun to play against.
After some initial prototyping, Riot decided the new system showed promise, so they mentioned
it on the forums.
The first stealth rework attempt was instead kinda put on the side and just used to change
Evelynn and Twitch directly, but because the players were now expecting a huge stealth
upgrade they were kinda disappointed.
At the time, Riot weren’t sure whether players wanted a different and complex stealth system
or just some changes that made stealth champions more viable and less irritating by giving
it more counterplay, but it’s interesting to know they did toy with the idea of the
full blown stealth rework almost 4 years ago.
For those of you wondering what a stealth rework might look like though, you actually
might not have to wait long, because a total stealth revamp is set for release alongside
the assassin update actually, and it will be affecting every champion that uses stealth
so no one will be left out.
Pretty exciting stuff, gonna be really cool to see what they do with it.
That just about wraps up what we know so far about cancelled reworks, it honestly sounds
like Riot spend a crap ton of time playtesting tons of different ideas for abilities, it
makes me wish they would just shove em in the game for a fun gamemode sometime when
they come up with something really crazy.
Anyway there’s a lot of potential for further reworks in the future, especially for the
champions that haven’t had a modern rework yet, so hopefully some of these ideas were
iceboxed and will show up later on down the road.
Let us know in the comments, and it looks like that’s gonna be it from me, if you
enjoyed the video drop a like, subscribe if you want, thanks for watching, and I’ll
see you guys next time.