User blog comment:Deshiba/What if: Viktor/@comment-1330314-20140522040846/@comment-1330314-20140522223354

Are you kidding?! I'm proposing to slash Viktor's base stats so hard that he needs the stats on his trinket to be on par with other champions. I suggested giving him the lowest base health in the game, for crying out loud. The Viktor I'm proposing has to give up a lot to get stats on his trinket.

What makes your assertion even more ridiculous is that is Viktor's passive. Every passive bonus every champion gets for free is tied to his Hex Core. Unlike every other champion bar, for whom trinkets are just one item among many that they choose purely for vision, the Hex Core is an intrinsic part of Viktor's build and identity. It's mandatory on him. It's just as much a part of him as his abilities and base stats. Without it, he has no passive at all. Heck, even Rengar has his leap. You're complaining that I'm giving him combat stats on his unique trinket when champions like and  get 20% lifesteal/spellvamp for free.

Let me put it this way: I am deliberately making Viktor very, very underpowered on his base stats and the base damage on his spells, to the point where he would need an extra item slot just to make up for the massive gap in his stats. The reason I can do this is because I can shift that missing power onto his Hex Core, which also allows for Viktor to gain cool bonuses in a more interactive way, more so even than, whose base armor is permanently set to 16 in order to compensate for the strength of his passive. Think of the different Hex Cores as modules, allowing Viktor to fully specialize in a particular build while maintaining pronounced weaknesses in his other aspects. Because the Hex Core and Viktor are part of the same whole, I can freely move power to and from Viktor and into or out of his Hex Core. Removing the stats from the Hex Core and shifting them back onto Viktor just brings him back to his current state, where he discards all but one of his augments because his generalized stats and AP per level passive just naturally shove him towards playing like a poke mage.

You're really thinking in a closed-minded way here. The Hex Core isn't just any trinket, it's Viktor's entire passive, and his core identity. He gets to play more with it than others because that is the feature that defines him and sets him apart from the rest. The assumption that giving Viktor's trinket combat stats would unbalance him is utterly wrong: you could give Viktor -200 base health and have the Hex Core give +200 health, and it would not change a thing on him, even if his Hex Core did give him combat stats.