Because Riot are obsessed with making my life ever so slightly difficult, they went and announced a new champion while I was desperately speeding through the German Autobahns to get back to my PC to post about exciting League of Legends news. And this is quite exciting League of Legends news. We had Zyra, the plant lady Poison Ivy person, last week, and we’ll soon be getting Diana, Scorn of the Moon.
Only the thing is, her and the moon seem to be pretty chummy. All of her powers are moon based. Maybe the idea is that she attacks those who have scorned the moon, in a kind of reciprocal scorn loop. Which could be why all of her abilities are about getting her up close and personal with enemy champions.
To start she’s got a passive, Moonsilver Blade, which gives her increased attack speed and boosts every third basic attack with some extra damage. Then there’s Crescent Attack, on her Q, which sends out a bolt of energy away from her, dealing damage in an arc and afflicting enemies with ‘Moonlight’, which is a debuff that benefits her ultimate, Lunar Rush, which lets her teleport to an enemy and deal magic damage. However, if the target has the Moonlight debuff, there’s no cooldown on Lunar Rush. Synergy. Delicious synergy.
Then on your W you’ve got Pale Cascade, which creates three spheres that hover around her, dealing damage if they hit enemies. It also gives her a shield which is then refreshed if you can get all three orbs to explode. Then on your E you’ve got Moonfall, which pulls in and slows nearby enemies, maybe to get them to hit some exploding orbs? Yes, that is the sound of my lips smacking at the idea of all that delicious synergy.
It’s interesting to see Riot making a champion that isn’t build around some game-stopping ultimate, instead favouring something that’s more of a very useful utility piece. It’s quite exciting, actually, as it hopefully means we’re moving away from entertaining but a little gimmicky mechanics like Draven’s flying axes, or Darius’ silly ultimate. When you’re not walking around with a bazooka, you tend not to think you can take out every armoured batallion that comes your way. It makes you play a little smarter, and hopefully understand your champion all the better.
Either way, we’ll see when she launches, probably sometime next week.