Champion Reveal: Jhin, the Virtuoso[]
- Abilities
- Whisper
Jhin's gun - Whisper - chambers four shots, the last of which always crits and applies extra damage based on a portion of his target's missing health. After firing all four shots, Jhin takes a moment to reload.
Jhin's crits deal less damage than normal, and his attack speed doesn't actually scale with attack speed. Instead, Jhin gains attack damage from any attack speed and crit chance he earns through itemization and runes, while crits give him a burst of movement based on his attack speed.
- Dancing Grenade
- Deadly Flourish
- Passive: Enemy champions that have been struck by Jhin's basic attacks, , or any allied damage are for a few seconds.
- Active: Jhin fires a massively long range shot that damages all enemy minions and the first enemy champion in a target direction. If the enemy champion he strikes has already been , they're briefly rooted, while Jhin himself gains a burst of movement speed.
- Captive Audience
- Curtain Call
- Laning
Jhin's a different kind of marksman. While most look to whittle their opponents down with a constant barrage of sapping attacks, Jhin's fastidious to the extreme, and thrives when he handpicks his opportunities to strike. In lane, he's best off saving his valuable
for last-hitting, keeping track of his ammo count and looking for moments when he can expend his bullet - his deadliest - on his lane opponent. Jhin's basic attack range is distinctly average at best, making him relatively easy to harass in lane. That's where the Virtuoso can turn to , using the bouncing canister to secure last hits from relative safety, and even apply effective harassment if his opponents stick too close to their minion waves.Still, Jhin's low attack speed will often see him pushed under tower, and having to fire off his shots to last hit instead of harass. Here's the thing, though: when Jhin correctly plans for this, when he places a few of his
traps as he falls back, he'll be perfectly placed to call on his jungler and slowly close the noose around his hapless opponents' necks. As the gank starts, Jhin and his allies work best initiating the attack and corralling their targets towards their pre-set traps. Once they trigger, Jhin can follow up immediately with , damaging his target and them inside the trap's as it ticks down toward zero. The explosion, which they're now guaranteed to be caught inside, chunks them down further, setting the stage for Jhin's and final bullet. They'll die, one way or another.being traps, they also make perfect defensive cover for Jhin when he decides to aim his iron sights at his enemies and get aggressive. While these opportunities are rare, a fortuitous against a weakened enemy doesn't just give Jhin the chance to kill his target, but also the means to chase. Jhin excels here, following up on enemy with to root his target as he blows them away with basic attacks. Overextending generally attracts enemy junglers, of course, but if Jhin manages to pull the trigger on his and final shot, the guaranteed crit (and therefore guaranteed speed boost) should help him speed away as his would-be killer slogs through the Virtuoso's traps.
- Skirmishing
Once he's set up, Jhin's great at objective control, thanks in part to his traps. By placing
traps on the enemy team's easiest path to , Jhin earns his team advance notice of any impending arrivals, and can temporarily root enemy junglers with . Even if they continue their advance, Jhin can throw in a to apply damage to grouped enemies before carefully picking off his targets with basic attacks. He's poor at securing objectives himself - his slow attack speed alone sees to that - but he gives his team a huge boost toward securing objectives when he plans out and prepares for the fight in the areas around them.Then there's Jhin's
. gives Jhin and his team huge leverage over objectives when the Virtuoso is able to set up and prepare his sniper nest. The ability has huge range, but only within a set angle, giving Jhin a few key considerations to think about as he searches for his grassy knoll. Set up too close and he'll make an easy target for enemy assassins; too far and he'll render himself irrelevant after he's spent his ; set up poorly and he'll risk losing sight of the battle as it shifts around. Get his position just right and Jhin will wreak havoc from afar before moving in to finish the fight up close.- Teamfights
Jhin has two viable strategies in teamfights: either appear at the start of the battle, or at the end. If he chooses to stick with his team, he takes up a traditional backline position, setting up
to protect his fellow squishes while aiming at targets. only adds to the carnage, and when the enemy team starts to flee, Jhin's perfectly positioned to fully assemble and cut the remaining enemies down with .Alternatively, Jhin can choose to set the stage early by firing off his
first. This makes him an unusual character in a teamfight because he won't actually be seen, at least initially. And while enemy teams might first revel in the apparently lopsided fight, they'll quickly realize that the Virtuoso's absence is deliberate. Jhin's presence may not be felt, but his absolutely will. deals less damage to high health enemies, but the ability's slow will hinder enemy frontliners from getting to where they want to be, and stop vulnerable enemies from squirming away from Jhin's damage dealing allies. More importantly, will start to pin Jhin's enemies down, forcing them to hide behind their tankier allies or run for cover. And even when his spent, Jhin can contribute to fights, locking down targets with so his allies can clean up the fight and push on toward victory.- Synergy
Works well with: | Struggles against: |
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Darius - the Hand of Noxus Darius and Jhin make for an unusual combination. While most marksmen deal more damage than juggernauts, Darius is such an oppressive force that Jhin can actually complement his strengths by simply targets down with and while Darius does... well, what Darius does. Which is . |
Yasuo - the Unforgiven Concentrating Jhin's power into deadly bullets means that champions that can negate one or two of said bullets will effectively halve the Virtuoso's short term damage output. Enter Yasuo, who will happily Jhin's basic attacks away before cutting him down under a of steel. |
Nautilus - the Titan of the Depths One of League's crowd control supertanks, Nautilus has enough , , , and to stop multiple enemies from reaching Jhin. This helps keep the Virtuoso alive, obviously, but more importantly, encourages him to get closer than he'd otherwise be comfortable and do some serious damage with his basic attacks. |
Jarvan IV - the Exemplar of Demacia 'Demacia' really loudly, of course. bullets are enough to take down plenty of targets, but not J4, who'll happily n his way over to Jhin before laying into him inside . All while shouting |
Morgana - the Fallen Morgana's super strong alongside Jhin because she has plenty of reliable ways to his enemies. The dream is into , obviously, which wrecks most enemies, but even if Morgana her enemy with , Jhin will still have opportunities to fire off his and his enemy for a few moments, which in turn sets up a perfect opportunity. |
Lucian - the Purifier Lucian makes for a pretty hefty thorn in Jhin's side. Not only is he mobile enough to dodge most of Jhin's abilities with , he also packs plenty of burst. So, while Jhin's forced to rely on his basic attacks to deal reliable but slow damage, Lucian can tag the Virtuoso with before rushing in to apply the hurt with . This is not Jhin's favorite gun show. |
Champion Insights: Jhin[]
By Conor 'fizzNchips' Sheehy[2]
We started with a blank page, and ended with a killer.
Here are the steps in between.
Design notes by August 'August' Browning
Art notes by Larry 'TheBravoRay' Ray
Narrative notes by Odin 'WAAARGHbobo' Austin Shafer
Our initial goal was pretty clear: we wanted to deliver on a sniping fantasy that was notably different from
long range gunning. If anything, her fast rate of fire and unlimited ammo aligns her closer to a semiautomatic rifle-wielding gunner, whereas we wanted to really explore what it felt like to use an old fashioned, bolt-action sniper rifle. We aimed for a champion who had slow and impactful shots, who could express skill through their long-range , and who'd apply with their shots even if they missed. One way or another, every shot would count.- Early Inspiration
Early sketches focused on a mysterious robot cowboy bounty hunting sniper - not the easiest elevator pitch - but the concept quickly hit the proverbial icebox as we focused on other further developed concepts. A couple of champs progressed from concept into production, in fact, while our sniper chilled out in his icebox, including a certain
duo. After we figured out theme, we felt that a system was a better fit for them, so pulled the mechanic from the sniper. Without the bounty hunting, we were still left with a mysterious robot cowboy sniper - still a cool idea, and still something we wanted to explore. So we came back, set on executing this long-range sniping fantasy. Initially, we just gave him a sniper rifle, but the range and speed still felt too close to , so we started thinking of ways to differentiate him. We eventually settled on the concept of a weapon, something that looked like a short-range for basic attacks, but that could be assembled for long-range sniping with his abilities. The idea stuck, so August started looking at ways to necessitate planning and execution, emphasizing carefully timed and placed shots as opposed to your average marksman's attack speed-fueled barrage of withering basic attacks. As we started discussing the concept internally, we quickly realized that the term 'sniper' felt wrong - there was just too much overlap with , and the term implied that everything he did would be at supreme range - so we started thinking about a better development term for the character.- The Deadeye
The term 'Deadeye' fit perfectly, encompassing aspects of a long range killer without the excess baggage that came with the sniper term. August started diving into this
idea, and implemented an ammo system for his basic attacks. Meanwhile, quickly turned into the longest range basic ability in the game, but would be most effective when his allies had already his target. This was our attempt to bring the feeling of spotting - where others call out targets for their sniper to shoot - to League! What's more, , along with , tied into the sniping fantasy much better, because they cover huge range, but most importantly, can miss. This added a ton of skill into the abilities, of course, and would mentally affect Deadeye's target even if he didn't land his shot. You've seen movies where soldiers run for cover after a sniper takes his first shot, and that was a heavy inspiration for the feel we wanted to convey with Deadeye.Massive range meant that Deadeye needed to set up his sniping nest too, which became a really important part of his gameplay as we started testing his kit. Deadeye had to think about where he could be most effective, and while enemy teams would start piling in thinking they were on the better end of a 4v5, they quickly learned their lesson and started asking themselves that single, fear-laced question: "Where's the sniper?"
- Four is the magic number
August fixed Deadeye's ammo count to
- the low number meant that every shot count, and meant we could ramp up the damage so that, well, every shot hurt, too - and we liked the idea of the shot being the deadliest from a mechanics perspective. But why would Deadeye save his most powerful shot for last? We started looking at his character, and actively turned the number four into a common repeating motif for him. Deadeye doesn't want to just kill you - he wants to kill you perfectly by slowly building up to a sublime death. Odin started thinking of Deadeye as an artist, and built in references to music - specifically opera - in his voice lines and personality. We doubled down and repeated four as a key number in his kit, with four bounces on his , and four shots. We found that this actually echoes well with our own world, where the word 'four' sounds like the word 'death' in Chinese, and is, because of that, a deeply feared and unlucky number in many parts of Asia. It was perfect for Deadeye.- It's all in the eyes
His theme and mechanics were taking shape, so we started experimenting with Deadeye's visuals. We were still trying ideas around this robot cowboy look, but wanted to see how different factions around Runeterra would shape Deadeye's appearance. We tried out some Zaun designs, gave Deadeye a mask and made his gender ambiguous. Next we wanted to try adding some unsettling asymmetry to his shape. Larry drew up a few silhouettes, and one really grabbed the team:
Why the hump? What was that thing? It formed a strong point of curiosity for us that we loved, alongside the constructible gun. Next Larry drew up some animation studies, and we saw what the hump actually was - part of his weapon - and how he moved. Stakeholders were instantly on board, so we iterated further, turning Deadeye into a Darkin, then a woman. Next we tried Ionia, and immediately found traction with their ornate architecture and form over function design ethos. Settling there, we elongated his body and turned his mask into a real intricate work of art. We steered away from robotics because it lacked the elegance that Deadeye's character was fast developing, and didn't click with his burgeoning feel. In fact, we knew the character was turning into a pretty nasty killer, but in order for him to be truly terrifying, we wanted him to look approachable. Deadeye needed to appear human, appear normal, only to realize as you drew closer that something was off. Really off. We came to call this 'The Lie'.
- The Lie
Odin continued refining Deadeye - now named Dexter, Deadeye might appear normal, but is a true monster inside, hellbent on his art and giving his victims the perfect death.
- into a monster. But not the -style rip-your-head-off-and-eat-your-heart kind of monster. We wanted Jhin to be a real psychopathic killer, someone who you could interact with, but who wasn't all there. He seems to be smiling, but he's not: that's just his mask. Jhin searches for a justification for doing what he does, and similar to- Butterflies and Roses
We were on the home stretch. We took a look at Jhin's weapons, and aimed specifically at creating magical guns rather than strictly ballistic weapons. Hammering home his artistic aspirations, we looked at Jhin's
, and added a fountain pen-like nib to its barrel. Finally, we applied a color pass to him, and decided to give him bright, lively shades that emphasized his peacocking. His main three shades - purple, white, and gold - directly reference Roman emperors, so while Jhin's very much equipped to kill, he's also dressed to impress.Finally, and this isn't normally something we reference in these articles, but that original robot cowboy concept did actually make its way onto the Rift. It's his launch skin - - a nice little hat-tip to the original concept that created the Virtuoso.
Jhin[]
This week, we sit down with Champion Designer August 'gypsylord' Browning - join us as we chat with him about his board game habit, champ design at Riot, and developing .