User blog:Care Level/Let's design champions!

Let's start with some kind of design philosophy: what do we want, in a strong and well-defined package? How about... an extremely mobile, hard-hitting, physical top-lane melee carry/assassin that's counterplayable, valid through the entire game, and, most importantly, feels good to play with and against?

Well, let's get the immediate questions out of the way, then.

How "Mobile" are We Talking?
"Extremely mobile" isn't well defined -- how mobile are we talking, here? A few of the most iconic "mobile" champions (not the most iconic, mind you, but two of them) "mobile" champions are Quinn, Riven, and Kha'Zix. Their mobility comes in two flavors: Quinn is a beast at map-wide repositioning, able to quickly join an engagement, reach a lane to push, or escape in a pinch: she's pseudo-global, and I'm a fan of that. Riven and Kha'Zix, on the other hand, are exceptional at repositioning during an engagement. Their skill-based mobility can make them very difficult to lock down in a fight, but it also has the benefit of augmenting their map-wide mobility, with the drawbacks that expending skills to get to a battle leaves a risk of having those abilities unavailable for the combat that they've rushed to (we're pretending, for a moment, that Riven has cooldowns). So what kind of mobility do I want, then? Well, simple answer: both.

Now, balance is the idea that drawbacks should be proportional to benefits, so it'll be an exercise in design to give this mobility a cost that (1) offsets its amazing utility and (2) allows the champion to continue to feel good. We'll get into that, later, though: for now, we're just getting our goals on paper.

What's this "Carry/Assassin" Nonsense?
Then, you're asking, "What's a "carry/assassin?".  Well, Vayne is one (the only?) example.  Does she have burst damage?  No.  Does she have extremely high sustained damage and enough CC to 100-0 someone before it wears off?  Yes.  Being an "assassin" isn't about "killing things extremely fast", it's about killing things before they or their team can  be reasonably expected to react.  By the time the Condemn stun has worn off, the target has already taken too much damage to expect to win the engagement.  They try to run, but it's too late: Night Hunter has engaged and there's no getting away -- they've been, in an instant of poor positioning, sentenced to death before they or their team could react to it.

We picked Vayne for a reason: see, Vayne never gets to choose when she can land Condemn. Her opponent must allow her to, outside of very specific circumstances (i.e. Blitz landed a pull and happened to be standing near a wall; oh, well), and that's how we justify her assassination potential with her carry ability. If Zed could consistently output Vayne-like damage numbers, he'd be absurd because Zed chooses when Zed gets to assassinate you.

Similarly, if our champ is to be allowed a carry role, they can't simultaneously be allowed to dictate the terms of their opponents' executions.

"Hard-Hitting"?  How Hard is "Hard"?
Like a fucking mac truck. What does it feel like to get hit by a Riven, or an Elise? Do you cry, a little, when a Darius drops his Guillotine on you? That's what we're looking for: we want you to wince, sitting behind your keyboard, when your health bar explodes.

More importantly, though, we want our carry to be able to brawl with the beefy champs (you ever just get punked by a Malphite or something?  Sucks). In a teamfight setting, there are three (two and a half, really) roles that a melee can generally play: So, on our checklist, we've checked the boxes labeled "offensive". Our kit need not entertain Leona-like crowd-control; we have no aspirations to defend. No, we'll forgo that in pursuit of Tons of Damage.
 * 1) Blow up Squishies.  These melee champs often gap-close with the best of them (let's reference Riven and Kha'Zix again), or posess the ability to be durable even with their big-damage payloads (I wonder if I can somehow reference Riven again).  They're not "carries", tratitionally, because their damage can't generally be sustained.
 * 2) Kill Tanks.  Instead of bypassing the meats wall protecting the squishies in the back, some champions instead posess a kit that favors breaking the walls down, instead.  Irelia's true damage, tenacity, and extra sustain allow her to push tough targets out of fights when that's what's needed; Master Yi's true damage makes vulnerable the "hard" targets (go away, Nautilus, no one likes you).  Indeed, true damage is a relatively common theme, here: hard targets have armor.  If we're going to kill them with purpose, we'd best have a way around resistances.
 * 3) Be a Tank.  Lastly, we can have a goal that doesn't really include killing anything: with tough armor, big crowd-control, and present-but-not-really-scary damage, we can defend our own squishies.  This, however, is not a role that we'll pursue.

Let's Talk About a Kit, Then.
Keeping in mind our goals (hyper-offensive, hyper-mobile), we can start to look at the things we'll need to be able to achieve them. Our overarching theme, our modus operandi, is making health bars go down. Fast. And, as we've stated, we want to be able to spread that treatment across the board, and that requires some resistance mitigation. How about, then: It looks rather familiar, doesn't it? Corki's Hextech Shrapnel is remarkably similar, with a few notable differences. For starters, it's a flat 10%, as opposed to our 13-30%. 20% true damage is a glaring disparity! Indeed, it is, but here is where we justify the damage increase: Corki is ranged. Our champion is melee.
 * Passive: Deals (12 + level)% AD bonus true damage to foes hit by basic attacks or spells.  This damage is adjusted for critical hits.

In Riot's balance discussions, they talk of a "power budget", or something along those lines, and it's a simple, to-the-point balancing philosophy: if something that one champion does is not as strong, something else that they do may be stronger. Consider: if a new champion named Bizarro Caitlyn were released with every stat exactly the same, with the exception of her basic attack range, which were reduced to melee, how often would she be played competitively? Obviously, never: all other factors considered, having more range is an advantage over having less range (alternatively, compare the converse: Aatrox or Tryndamere, but with the range of Sivir or Quinn, would immediately become gods among carries). Since our champion has less range than Corki, they are allowed more of something else: in this case, damage.

Further, proportionally large true damage allows our champion to effectively fight hard targets, which was a design goal; I'd go so far as to say that we've actualized that goal with this skill, alone, which allows us to press on.

Let's talk about big damage (with counterplay) and big mobility. This is beautiful. Why is it beautiful? Because it's an ability that presents an interesting scenario every time it's used. For starters, it's channelled and, so, interruptable. This is our "poke", our Vault Breaker in lane. With some (quite) notable differences.
 * Charge for up to (longish) seconds, increasing range from (medium) up to (far) and damage from (decent) up to (glorious).  While charging, your movement speed is slowed by (not sure)%.  On release, dash to your target location, dealing damage to all foes a wide path, reduced based on the distance travelled since the last target struck.

First, let's talk about damage reduction based on distanced travelled. This means that, quite simply, a tight group takes less damage than a loose one. In lane, you can counterplay this by standing with your minion wave; in a team fight, you're punished hard for being caught out.

Then, we'll talk about damage that scales with distance. Let's look at our extremes: a long dash that does wonderful damage, or a short one that does okay damage. While, for its cost, the long dash always yields more up-front bang for your buck, it has the terrible risk of causing you to overextend, either in lane or in team fights. Further, as it's a pass-through skillshot dash, big damage will inherently push your lane, possibly putting you in a dangerous position.

Like Vault Breaker, this gives our champion strong map mobility, at the cost of not having a strong repositioning and damage tool available for an immediate engagement.

It's simple, straightforward, and intuitive, with high potential risk and reward. Beautiful.

However, what it doesn't offer was that assassin/carry capability that we talked about. To that end: Again, bravo. This is the iconic Pulverize -> Headbutt combo (that's Q -> W, not WQ), all in a neat package. What does it do in practice? It punishes foes hard for being caught out of position or, alternatively, sacrifices your position to force them into a bad position. This is that moment when a Jayce knocks a key target into or out of a fight. This is that moment when a Lee Sin destroys the Nexus by kicking Teemo into it. This is that clutch melee ability that makes you feel like a beast when you do it right. This is an ability that rewards you for playing it well.
 * First activation: Melee-range.  Deals (decent) damage and stuns/roots your target for (not much) seconds.  Can activate again within (few) seconds.
 * Second activation: Melee-range.  Deals the same (maybe) damage and launches your target (medium) distance away from you.  If they collide with other units, those units are knocked aside and take (less) damage.  If they collide with terrain, they take (big) damage and are stunned for (critical) seconds.

Moving right along, then: Think Leona ult and Kha'Zix jump. Why this particular combination? Because this fleshes out the assassin role, allowing you to decimate targets caught out by you (see previous ability) or your allies. Meanwhile, on its own, it's a hard-to-land skillshot that very much rewards skill in its use. What's more, one might sacrifice its damage in order to use it as a repositioning tool: since, unlike Kha'Zix, we don't get extra jumps on kills, a player can instead alternate using this and their dash (two skills prior) to engage/disengage. Essentially, this ability compliments and augments the existing aspects of our kit.
 * Leap (somewhat slowly) to target area up to (far-ish) distance away.  Foes caught in a (wide-ish) area take (decent) damage and are slowed by (decent)% for (not long) seconds.  Foes caught directly in the (somewhat tiny) impact area take (OUCH) damage and are stunned for (OUCH) seconds, instead.

And we'll talk about an ult, tomorrow.