User blog:Nazareadain/Lenaieka, Protector Itinerant

This god damn champ
Well. Went from being a support juggernaut to a support control skirmisher that plays like riven with a kit that looks like a 'best of' from other champions, taking the funnest parts. High outplay potential, with aggressive scalings to promote living on the edge. still borderline useless alone, and cannot really instigate fights, but counter potential should be tight. Using base AD for everything may seem overkill, but it seems better to soften her power curve considering the extreme feast or famine potential. Still in the process is stripping her down via design by subtraction, which means the kitchen sink is finally out, at least.

Actually about this champ
Twinblade wielding Guardian(in almost every sense of the word, including parent) gone mercenary. Themes of vengeance, survival and protection. Defends allies through a mixture of joint mobility, clutch intervention, and bursts of blocking, before turning the tables via retribution - a resource gained from defending allies, allowing her to go on the offense, through new or altered abilities that share cooldowns with their more defensive counterparts, which allow her to displace, control, bleed, and cut through multiple targets in small, focused areas, to seal her role as a cooperative "duolist" - best suited for 2v2s, but in a way that demands risk from both allies and restraints that hamper her solo performance despite the duelistic kit.

Champion Role, Purpose and theme.
Body guard, and duo-duelist. Can greatly bolster the power of a single ally, and lock down single opponents, as she throws herself between her allies and enemies to protect and avenge them. Power is greatly limited when by herself, and not ideal for teamfights, but when it comes to low number brawls, she's top in her class. She can borrow the defenses of one ally to go on the offensive, while stopping blow after blow as she dashes around the battle field, or lend her own body as protection and attacking the nearest assailant to intervene and bolster their shields, and force blows onto herself.

Durability required due to short range and being a melee fighter, meaning health, armor and magic resistance. AP to outlast the enemy by continually bolstering shield. Cooldown reduction all around good. AS to deflect and build retribution. AD for actual damage. What she focuses on countering is melee assassins, stopping upfront damage and locking them down, while struggling with long range casters and aoe damage.

If you're wondering why a double bladed sword?

- A shield is good for defending. When it can reach the attack. For defending others - Better to extend a blade of your own in greeting and in challenge. And so I call it my greeting blade. My retribution.

Aesthetic and Story
She's someone who's had to fight through armies just to keep another alive. She'll do it again. She's trained to navigate and escort whomever her partner may be through or around any fight, others be damned. Friend or foe.

Growing up as a soldier, she eventually earned the right to carry an heirloom. One half of a double blade - so to most: just a sword, though a named one at that. It may have many other names, but she simply knew it as Defender. Trained and already naturally skilled beyond the capacity of her peers, despite it all, when the sudden and unjust war came to her lands, she could do nothing for her people. As the army swallowed the lands of her friends and family, soon darkness took her, too.

Only - unlike the others, she woke from the darkness. Woke to sound of distant crying. Dust lay thick in the air, shafts of light through the canopy making the clouds of dust and the corpses apparent. Her face was stiff with caked blood, and throat raw from breathing - Still breathing. Through the confusion a question crawled up her spine: 'did I do this?' That she had no honest answer left an obvious mark on her expression and poise. Her sight trailed down to her hand. In it, she held Defender, as clean as when she'd first received it. Her sight trailed further and attached to the hilt was a blade black and caked in blood - its sister blade: Vengeance.

Again a cry rang out through the stagnant air to clear her mind. Lenaieka followed the call. The puddles of blood soaking into the earth splashed as he walked through them. She came closer to the voice, trudging through the swamp of death. Her eyes, as they strayed from the path, saw many corpses. Too many. Some in uniform and some not. The answer to her role in this lay caustic and bitter on her tongue, but as still and fresh as the corpses.

Once more she heard the cry and the tiny source sat baptized in blood. Lenaieka's sword slipped from her hand and she rushed to pick up the small child. For a moment Protection and Vengeance lay behind her, and guilt and maternity streaked down her face as tears. Her mask of blood cracking as the tears fell to reveal her face. Trembling, the only thing certain in her mind was the she had to protect her. This was her path. Thin and narrow, as all else was unclear except for one small thought. A name. Nanamoré. Little Nana. I'll keep you safe.

Yet after all that, there was little safety to be found. The self-proclaimed emperor sent assassins and soldiers after her. And trying to send gentle Nana to safety and away from this, resulted in the potential new surrogates' death, and the child held hostage. Fate would not have them separated, and the emperor would not let them live. After years on the run, going between the necessities to survive and naivety of a childhood that Lenaieka was determined to give her, she was eventually confronted with the situation. The emperor had to die.

The false emperor - the target of her vengeance.

The girl - the symbol of her redemption.

It was as if they were choices set before her. When she committed herself to killing the emperor, even if it was to bring safety to her and the girl, that morning Nanamoré had disappeared. She set of in search for her, casting aside thoughts of vengeance. In trade for information on the girl she sold herself as a bodyguard. Repeatedly she was lied to by the desperate, used by the cruel, but still protected those who needed it by no other virtue than that need. She never knew which one they were until she had already defended them, and as if fearful of what would happen if she once more started down that path, against them, too, she set aside vengeance to find her surrogate daughter. And so still she remains a protector itinerant.

- There's a line between protection and vengeance. I am that line.

When moving:
I'm coming for you.

I'll find you eventually.

Don't worry. Mommy's coming.

Sweet child.

when intervening:
Decide - fight or flight!

I'll pull you through. Don't worry.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

I'd better not regret this.

When using defiance:
Stand with me!

I'll defend you. Come what may.

When using Oath of Protection:
Attack them. I dare you.

Be brave, child.

When using Hold the Line:
This far! And no further.

Cross that, or cross me.

Playing as Lenaieka
Always keep your range in mind. Just running at your opponent is rarely going to get you anywhere.

Your best shot is having an ally that can take risks, which you can jump to, or grant crowd control to help you.

Keep in mind what you want to do in a fight before going in. If you want to go on the offensive, shield someone with high resistances to have some of your own. If you're scared for your team mates, shield them, but keep in mind you should keep a balance of offense and defense to be useful and waiting around to block a blow that never comes won't get you anywhere.

Be aware of your weakness against mages. You can intervene a spell, and you can't kill what you can't reach.

Understand your own durability: if your shields disappear, you have a period of significant weakness.

You can do a lot of damage with AD. But you won't get to deal it without Retribution.

If you're not tanky enough, there's no reason not to focus you. You can't intervene strike against yourself.

Keep at least one of your shields alive to maintain the resistance buff, and ability to bolster. Having a hard time doing that? Get more shields to add on top of that.

Playing against Lenaieka
Though she's tanky, she's very weak by herself as she needs someone to defend in order to build retribution which allows her to retaliate. Her powers are also significantly weaker when only used on herself.

By herself Devastate not only deals significantly less damage - it's also her only real offensive ability.

If you find her with an ally, be sure to either keep your distance while wearing them down, or that you outnumber them.

She can come leaping into battle on the back of an ally, from especially far if they were struck during oath of protection. The visuals are pretty clear when that may happen.

During oath of protection, that target is the danger. If they are struck after, Lenaieka becomes the danger. Try and gauge which case is worst, and keep in mind the stun.

You can't dash across Lenaieka's marked ground from Hold the Line, so if she dashes to you and you can't move for a second, it's a clear tell that you should not try to dash behind you. She did, however, spend a point of retribution, so it might be worth going on the offensive. Just try to keep her separate from her allies during this.

See a juicy target near Lenaieka? Be careful as she can stop you dead in your tracks: If she sees you, she can stop your auto attack, stun you, and stop a significant amount of damage aimed at that target, as well as stop your escape route if your were planning on dashing, and all of it just as fast as you were planning on killing them.

Things I want (to keep):
Retribution for your ally reflected in the opportunity to use aggressive abilities as opposed damage stat increases.

Which abilities are used are elegantly decided by what your target is, or double clicking.

Cooldown reduction as a reward for playing right and coordinating well. More actions feel better.

Emphasize cooperation, not just personal effort as the method of winning.

Cooperative strength puts both at risk to achieve, and require both to be close, despite possibility of operating effectively at different ranges.

A sense of brutality and force in the playstyle, like a pack of wolves tearing at the enemy. Merciless against few foes - selective and patient picking off the weak when facing many.

To that end, make cooperative skirmishing possible, and in the right comp, effective.

Might be hard to achieve with the juggernaut weight and feel, but I still want weight. (Re)Positioning is the key element for skirmishing. Displacement through knockbacks is probably best way of allowing skirmishes, while maintaining weighty feel.

Make your partner matter. Who you share defiance with could/should affect the other abilities in some way.

Cool situations:
Flanking: Coming from behind with a point of retribution allows Lenaieka to knock enemies away from each other, dash through and enemy knocked toward Lenaieka's tower, knocking an ally to safety, and zone enemies of with the zones.

Balance tuning issues:
Shield absorption based CC. might be too situationally extreme - OP in some circumstances, useless in others. I just think it's interesting.

Power is intended to be gradual. That is because conceptually it's strong early and falls of later, with exaggerated snowballing to cooperative nature, but it's a playstyle I want to remain active throughout the game, to promote small squad tactics later, while knowing you sacrificed teamfighting capabilities, poke, (reliable) cc and other traditional support strengths for that opportunity.

Due to juggernaut scaling, can easily backfire and scale too well into the lategame, making teamfights too easy when it's supposed to be a downside. Easy to reduce if strategy and playstyle remains valid.

(some of) the right knobs to turn for that is make sure she can't engage, she has to piggyback, struggles when locked down, and cannot tank bust reliably (unless isolated - since small numbers should be prey - probably the most difficult to achieve) so she needs to be selective about her targets while locked down and getting kited. Separation should be an issue. Should find ways to emphasize that.

Need to change:
too much target emphasis. I want attacking two enemies to be ideal, but just cool it. Bard's Q is effective against two targets at the same time. Maybe I can make devastate have an effect like misfortunes double-up. if an enemy is behind, there's one effect, if an ally, another.

Current plans:
Excommunicate is too anti-assassin and little else. I like the idea, but... seems a little too boring.

What if I make it reduce the damage of everyone around the target, but divide the number? Makes the lower number fights more relevant. She ends up feeling more like a bully than a protector, though. It's still only available with retribution... Mark of distrust? Binds target together to nearest enemy slowing them and making them take damage while near them. Damages and reduces AD of target. Applies slow that decays over time. Binds them to an enemy nearest them, prioritizing champions, applying all effects to them, too, and deals further damage over time to both until separated.

DONE:
Defiance new passive: Lenaieka gains vengeance toward attackers of protected target, granting her increased damage and movement speed towards them for 2 seconds.

Defiance doesn't take resistances anymore. Instead considers both health pools and averages. Has a minimum decay threshold like Morde's shield. Cleans it. Less numbers.

Make defiance also be jump assist and Remove jump from W. - means she can't double jump and has to decided whether to jump to ally for protection or enemy for lockdown, not both. Fewer abilities and clicks. same effects.

Remove stun on oath of protection. Rename god damn oath of protection. War pact or something. Rename defiance to oath of protection.

Devastate dashes through target. If an enemy is behind, dash to them and apply devastate to both. If an ally, knock them back and grant them speed boost.