They don’t like the word “rework”, but that doesn’t mean the updates aren’t working. Riot Games and their champion team have been hard at work breathing new life into their older and slightly defunct champions.
With an internal balance always in the works and more than 140 champions in the game, older kits and abilities are bound to fall out of favor. Recently, we went into details regarding the internal rework solutions in our Pantheon reveal. This time around, Riot Games is doing their update a little differently.
Instead of deciding on their own -- with whatever metrics tools they’ve used to single-out the previous champions who have received reworks -- the League of Legends team is going to ask the fans what they want.
It sounds like a really smart idea. Rather than plucking a champion from the least-played pool, giving the fans some control and ownership over the update could prove to be an awesome way to go about this in the future.
Fans the world over will have until the 15th of May to choose between the five champions up for reworks. With them, are little blurbs from the champion team regarding how they think they would rework them, giving fans a better idea of what those votes could count towards.
Player Voted Champion Update
Volibear
When Volibear launched, his kit didn’t really land well, and his gameplay has proven unsatisfying to the point where he’s the least played champion on this poll. His role in Runeterra has also evolved a lot since he was released, and if we were to update Volibear, we’d want to make sure he delivers as an imposing, lightning-fueled demigod of the Freljord. For his kit, we’d be aiming to make him less feast-or-famine, while giving Volibear a more unique gameplay identity that stands out in League’s champion roster. His kit changes would have a secondary goal of pushing his gameplay to feel more like playing an unstoppable force who charges his foes with the power of a ferocious bear.
Dr. Mundo
Dr. Mundo’s art and animations need a lot of work, but his kit has held up pretty well over the years, relative to some of the other candidates. If we were to update Mundo, we’d want to execute much better on his theme of a horrifying-yet-hilarious masochistic madman who goes wherever he pleases and does whatever he wants. For his gameplay, we’d want to preserve his niche as an unkillable self-healing super tank—since that’s currently what makes him stand out on the roster—as well as his iconic cleavers. His W and E don’t currently offer all that much satisfaction or decision-making, so we’d be looking to replace or upgrade both of these abilities.
Nocturne
Nocturne is an interesting case: He’s one of the most popular champions among players just starting out in League, but most of those players quit playing him shortly after trying him out. This suggests that Nocturne’s gameplay and visual fantasies are very strong, but he’s not quite delivering on them in game. If we updated Nocturne, we’d really want to drive home the promised fantasy of a living nightmare, leaving his enemies in total darkness. To accomplish this, we’d want to preserve his iconic ultimate but create a more deep and satisfying base kit to go along with it. We’d also enhance his visuals so that he lives up to his title as the Eternal Nightmare.
Shyvana
While Shyvana’s overall visual and kit quality isn’t as low as some of the champions in this poll, she falls under the category of champions like Irelia or Akali, who weren’t fully delivering on their thematic promise before being reworked. If we were to update Shyvana, we’d be looking to really bring the fantasy of “warrior who transforms into a fire-breathing dragon” to life. We’d do this by keeping her damaging fighter playstyle while making her dragon form better express the theme of a destructive fire-breathing dragon, differentiating it much more from her human form.
Fiddlesticks
Fiddlesticks has been on the list of champs we’d like to update for a while now, as not much about him has aged well. Our main goal with updating Fiddlesticks would be to push his theme of “terrifying scarecrow that comes out of nowhere” to a whole other level through both his visuals and gameplay. We’d want to preserve his unique mage jungler playstyle as well as his iconic ultimate Crowstorm. We’d also want to add more counterplay and satisfaction to his base kit while building in more synergies with Crowstorm.
Which of the five available champions would you like to see get reworked? A couple of these picks are a little weird. Like Fiddlesticks and Nocturne, both of which still see some play on big and small stages alike. Also Volibear seems like a werid champ to promote onto the "needs rework" list, because his kit is still overpowered and horribly difficult to go up against on the rift.
What's your take? Who do you think deserves the freshining up the most?
You have until 11:59 p.m. PT on May 15 to vote. You may cast your vote on the Nexus League of Legends Blog (at the very bottom of the page).
