User blog comment:Willbachbakal/(Champion Concept) Skjold, the Shield Warrior/@comment-174.60.175.106-20130118081935

Before I start, I'd like to point out all of the follow is intended as constructive critism and nothing else.

So, the basic concept here follows a WoW Warrior mixed with the Paladin's Avenger's Shield if I'm not mistaken.

I, too, had thought about a dual shield wielding character, as I like the idea of shields as both offense and defense in one.

Personally, I'd drop the rage gain from taking damage as it results in an Anti-pattern Zileas' talked about. Specifically the 'Anti-Combo' mentioned in his post on the subject of warriors in WoW.

Since in most team fights, from what I understand, the goal is to ignore or otherwise not attack the tank until last, it will just leave the tank rage starved and unable to use his abilities. Also, as Zileas' stated, higher amounts of damage reduction result in less damage, and this would result in less rage.

Instead, just roll that rage generation into his auto attack so that the only way he can get starved is by CC. If the enemy is using CC on your tank, they aren't using it on your carry/anti-carry/assassin.

I know another commentor suggested adding the damage taken to rage, but the drawback of being on cooldown should be that you can't use your abilities. Everyone's got to have a weakness.

Additionally, the scaling cooldown reduction from rage is interesting, but I have concerns about it having funky interactions with abilities. It would be better to offer a flat CDR based on level. The scaling CDR on rage is also problematic for itemization.

Since the character is nearly pure cooldown based, it would be better to itemize for cooldown reduction, which would end up wasting the passive since its unreliable in a fight. Offering a CDR gain per level also reduces the strain of itemization for CDR, allowing tankier items and limits early game lane domination/bullying.

This does turn the rage generation mechanic into a purely resource management system, but that can be a good thing. I worry about tossing any gains from rage (such as defensive or offensive stats) might help push him into OP status or make his balancing trickier than necessary.

On his 'Q' (Shield Dash/Bash), I'd drop the rage cost from Shield Bash, as its pointless the way you've got it setup. The Dash pays for the Bash, but the Bash pays for itself or double itself, so why not just have the Dash and the Bash both generate rage without the cost? The entire ability is designed as an intiation tool, and part of that would be starting up rage machine, just like 'Charge' for Warriors in WoW.

I'd also personally change the 'W' (Avenging Throw) to physical damage and AD scaling, which allows the character to be played as either a tank or a brusier. As a brusier, the player could stack some AD and Armor Pen to increase damage output while still gaining some damage off of tanky stats required to be a brusier.

The main reason is that, in its current form, its a utility spell, more useful for the slow than the damage. Normally, an ability like this would be taken at only one point. However, since his 'E' is also a utility spell, it becomes picking between two utility spells. By shifting it to physical & AD scaling, its now a second damage source, to be leveled up second after the primary 'Q'.

Also, its not quite clear in the description if the 'apex' point is movable or not, simliar to Diana's 'Crescent Strike'. It should be if possible, as otherwise the ability is an awkward skill shot only useful as a chasing tool and nothing else.

While on the subject of his 'W' (Avenging Throw), locking down his other abilities is a bad idea. Limiting a player's ability to control their character is generally not a great idea without a massive trade off such as Xerath's Locust. Better to let them just lose out on the opportunity to throw a second shield rather than the ability to charge and silence an opponent when its critical.

I know another commentor suggested removal of rage cost from his W, but there's no 'rage sinks' on this guy anywhere. He'll generate a bunch of rage with nothing to do with it. Better to give this ability a rage cost since it can be used twice.

His 'E' (Intercept) is another example of an Anti-Pattern, though I can't quite decide which one it is. I'm thinking 'Pattern Mismatch'. Again, as a tank, he shouldn't really be taking any shots that would be worthwhile to actually reflect in a teamfight, making this ability only useful when not tanking. This ability would be more suited for a brusier since they tend to duel people in lane, but on a tank its somewhat pointless. Carries/Anti-Carries/Assassins value items like Banshee's Veil for the spell shield, tanks don't as much.

Also, as a brusier, his 'E' would be insane, making trades in lane a complete joke. The real issue here is the definition of enemy 'spells'. Champions only have castable abilities, and this would effectively deny all abilities for two seconds. Just Q>E>Q results in nearly zero damage taken for a ton delivered. Uncounterable Top Lane Domination starting at level 2. It gets worse at level 3, since you can just tack 'W' onto the front of the combo for even more.

Finally, that brings us to his R, which seems to contain multiple anti-patterns. As stated above, the tank shouldn't be taking alot of damage until the fight is over, and generally only when on the losing side, or chasing someone down. This would be the first anti-pattern, damage reflect is a 'Pattern Mismatch'. The damage reflect also suffers from a little 'Power Without Gameplay', and even a little bit 'Burden of Knowledge' and 'Anti-Fun'.

The 'Power Without Gameplay' angle is represented by the fact that the ultimate's damage reflect would be difficult to notice without it being overpowered. Right now, if someone like Veiger, Annie, or LeBlanc nukes the character, they'll probably just about kill themselves.

It means that you could run this guy as a brusier and basically burst down a support while the carry kills themselves on you. If you tone it down to a more reasonable level, the passive component of the R is unsatisfying, contributing some damage to the fight, but nothing showy. The main focus of the R should be the taunt, with the damage reflection as a secondary effect, not the primary focus as its current levels suggest.

This brings us to the second, 'Burden of Knowledge'. When under attack, you've got a basic flight or fight response. This ability punishes the 'fight' response heavily, with no real reasonable indication that it should. Pushing R right before Veiger stuns and bombs you results in Veiger taking a ton of damage without understanding why he did. Same for Leblanc, who could, in theory, push all abilities (which are bursty damage dealers), and end up dead without the slightest clue what happened.

Finally, with the 'Anti-Fun' angle, imagine using this Ult and then charging Tryndamere. Not only is Tryndamere completely locked out of using any abilities, but he's probably going to half kill himself in the process because the taunt forces him to auto attack and do nothing else, especially if you've also adorned yourself with a Thornmail. How fun would it be as Trynd to go from full health to needing to press 'R' 2 seconds into the fight without having any control over it whatsoever? Taking 2 auto attack crit reflected back at 105% magic damage on a carry who probably doesn't have alot of magic resist isn't fun.

You could also throw in 'Anti-Combo' based on the fact that damage mitigation would reduce damage returned if the reflect % was lowered, now that I think about it.

Right now, the character is far better suited for being a brusier than a tank, as he doesn't offer enough disruption (a short taunt and a short silence) to fulfill the role.

As a brusier, he definitely falls under the category of 'AD caster', and would be both UP and OP at the sametime. With his ult up, he'd be OP, slowing and silencing targets right before making them kill themselves on his R.

"Why you hitting yourself? Why you hitting yourself?"

When his ult goes down, he'd only have those same two slows and silences, each relatively short duration, and then just auto attack, making him more or less ignorable, especially since attacking him with abilities would be a waste of time.

Okay, so, that's basically a full review on the abilities as presented with only a few suggestions tossed in. I didn't take a look at the base stats because I'm not quite as up to speed on interpreting them.

Basically, you've made a very unreasonable brusier here. There's no two ways about it. If you want him to be more tanky, he needs less defensive abilities and more disruption abilities, as tanks build defense while relying on their abilities to make the offense happen.

I'm not sure this whole thing will get posted. We'll see.