User blog comment:Willbachbakal/(CB1) Hannibal, the Dread Vanguard/@comment-533780-20150326154812

I do also think War Machine is too strong, not because of the damage it deals, but because it's a shield for 40% of his maximum health every 3 seconds, with the damage and 1.75 second AoE stun just making it worse. One or the other would already be too strong I feel. But both together is just insane. On a 3-second cooldown. Passively. It's incredibly strong, unless I'm totally misunderstanding how it works.

I'm not entirely sure how it fulfils the challenge, as Hannibal himself has all of his abilities work exactly the same at all times regardless of what the enemy are doing - except for one thing, which is that he can't summon Strife whilst an enemy is riding it. Is that right?

I really like his W, it's a very tasty move, but it's so epic it feels like it deserves to be an ultimate. Q is fine, decent support-style damage move. E is good too, it's a lot like Sion's Q, a solid tanky staple.

I personally think that making his passive shield an active with a proper cooldown on W, moving his W charge to his R, and making Strife his passive, would make his kit feel smoother.

I would also change Strife (I know how unique it is atm, it's his characteristic thing definitely), because the idea of overriding a champion's ability buttons (other than the caster's) is really unappealing to me, it will just be confusing and feel like a 5-second stun where you can't use your abilities to play your champion the way you're zoned in on playing them. I know it's optional, and there's a dismount button available, but I just feel that overall, it would be more fun to just have Strife be a 5-second movement speed buff that anyone can click to receive, and that wanders back to Hannibal when he's not being ridden. Obviously that misses a lot of the point of what you've designed here, which is sad, but I just think it wouldn't be be a fun experience overall. You could preserve Strife's movelist as a temporary ability-set when charging with W (or by my suggestion his new R), so the whole team jumps to Hannibal, and mounts up on Strife, who jumps into the enemy team carrying your allies on its back, kicking and stamping and being all awesome and horsey, as a massive and epic cavalry engage.

Apologies for being critical / suggesting changes; the only reason I'm commenting at all, is because this guy passes my only test: "Would I want to play as this champion?", so damn good work getting a lovely flavour and juicy abilities!