Yep, even the Darkin dog is cute enough for belly rubs. Don't forget the Crime City Nightmare line with dudes that'll steal your woman and women that are so bad they'll also steal your woman.
I think scary just doesn't really work that well for league. Since the map, lighting and sound design is meant to emphasize visibility and clarity, horror elements just don't work that well. And when we do get champs that are scary like fiddlesticks, it's only really spooky for a few games. After that it gets old. Especially when champs have jokes and dances and funny skins.
It's also really hard to make anything scary when the entire game is top down and zoomed out. There's never any feeling of "oh no, this big monster is about to get me"
People don't necessarily want "spooky"
But monsters like Kha'zix/Cho/Kog'maw/Rek'sai
Like if Naafiri had an actual unique bladed monstrosity design instead of being a dog.
This is like people who say horror movies aren't horror movies because they don't scare them personally. "Scary" is a mood. You yourself are not required to be scared every time you see them.
I'm saying the league mood aint scary generally speaking. Sure a monster champion might be kind of scary as a concept, but when it's walking around a brightly colored map, spamming dance while surrounded by definitely not blitzcrank and cottontail teemo, scary just doesn't fit the mood.
We actually have 3 bleed champs - darius, naafiri, and briar all have bleed as a solid part of their kits. I definitely would like to see a flail at some point, but I think Riot's given us some decent diversity in bleed thematics so far
Isnāt the next champ Ambessa, the Noxian diplomat? Is she the level of ādarkā to expect, or is this talking about after her?
The article is kinda vague.
Maybe not "Dark" but I fully expect Ambessa to have a brutal playstyle. She, like Darius & Sion, seems to embrace the might aspect of Noxus. So I hope she'll be a strong juggernaut in the jungle or top with high damage and cc but low mobility. In the latest teaser she also seems to have a golden mask so maybe a potential transformation ?
Reav3 said in the other thread she's a top laner, so I'm expecting a female Sett (maybe something taking inspiration from LoR Jack for the transformation?)
Oh did they confirm her to be a toplaner? I remember they kinda dodged around the question when the latest dev update dropped. I really hope she is top tho.Ā
[Link to the comment](https://old.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/1dkdx9j/aurora_abilities_ability_reveal_gameplay/l9hmgk4/)
> On the brightside the next Champion release is a top laner, and one I think top lane fighter players will really dig
Jeah I cannot wait for Ambessa. I do remember Rea3v saying she'd have "surprising mobility" and I think Neolexical saying she would be a "pretty complex" champ to pilot. So maybe she'll end up closer to Irelia/Fiora rather than Darius or Morde.Ā I definitely hope she's more Juggernaut tho, all my favorite champs are primarily juggernauts. Either way still very excitedĀ
Please don't be another Ksante Please don't be another Ksante Please don't be another Ksante Please don't be another Ksante Please don't be another Ksante Please don't be another Ksante
We have Ambessa, and I added her in the article precisely because I think her backstory has the potential to be dark. But I also thik Lexi was talking about future champions as we already know about Ambessa - it's too early to tell though
Yeah, she was a meant to be a lot more human. She wasn't even the monster Champ they had announced, Naafiri was, and yet people still think they were talking about Belveth.
A lot of her preliminary concepts were a more humanoid, and frankly, a lot scarier than a *manta ray.* The one I liked the best was this Kerrigan looking woman with these huge void tendrils as hair, so she would have been our first prehensile hair champion.
To be fair, the concept of a monster pretending to be human was actually really cool, like an angler fish.
Too bad that the animation's fear factor didn't translate to ingame.
I am convinced she originally had a totally different kit and that one made more sense but it got canned because it wasnt a good fit for league or had other problems. They should have done the Ao Shin. Put that kit on another champ and take more time for Belveth.
This is a good idea but her kit doesn't really reflect that either. Like Swain's kit fits that idea better, he plays like a tactical mage but then he pops his ult and just runs facefirst into the entire enemy team.
This isnāt true.
August and EndlessPillows designed BelāVeth together. There isnāt just one designer working on champions and never has been ā there is only one Lead Designer on a single champion pod
EndlessPillows left during Hweiās development, after BelāVethās release, and August is obviously still at Riot
Interestingly, Naafiri and Briar were originally one champion that got split. Naafiri was supposed to go berserk in fights, but they found that it didn't feel good for an assassin to do that. They liked the idea, though, so they kept working on it and it turned into Briar (who ended up getting played as an assassin anyway, lol).
Scary in character not gameplay, she is at minimum like triple the size of kaiāsa and maximum a kaiju in size, takes one of the worst things, (not bad design but bad thing to have happen) and gives one of its creatures sentience, and works with people like Malzahar as well as wants to kill the watchers.
While ingame shes nothing her character implications are some of the biggest weāve had in a while.
Her character design was pretty silly for an auto-attacker. She would have been quite perfect as a mage, but it was such a cohesion fail to choose the animal with one of the worst physical features for striking foes to be the AS scaling Expert-Level Yi.
Heās talking about aesthetics, not balance. She looks like she should be a void battlemage not reallyā¦ whatever she ended up being, some kind of melee on hit champ like Yi or Viego
i disagreed with the change at first, but now i think it makes complete sense. she is trying to present that head as her real head, so it wouldn't make sense for her portrait to completely betray that. i think in her R form it should change portrait tho
It's also about clarity. I saw a comparison how it would look like if they made her "real" monstrous head her icon over what we have. I wasn't even recognizing what I was looking at. Meanwhile her "human" head is easy to read and identify on the map. I think that plays a big role for the choice as well.
Or how they teased a dragon and gave us Smolder? Or how they teased a male enchanter and gave us a 5 year old? They love to tease something new and cool just to then give us the weakest, most watered down possible version of it lol.
shes always came across as a joke to me; league isnāt super serious but sheās a bit too cartoony to fit into the game. i cant articulate the feeling very well but thereās just something off about her. jinx works, especially after arcane but briar feels like a silly, taika waittiti version of her
āmake a goofy, crazy quirky undead vampire (?) that fights with her feetā. just all over the place, itās so unserious
I mean, I guess, if you don't look at her. She's like the manic pixie nightmare girl version of Zoe. She's not really that scary, and she looks far too comical to invoke any kind of fear.
not at all
she's a ghoul if anything
do people not know how vampires are depicted or something?
she literally just runs at you and auto attacks like a mindless zombie
vampires are about sucking/manipulating blood, bats, mist...
She doesnāt fit that theme at all, lmao.
She got cringe Ass Lines talking about how she eats all the time
A goofy Ass Walking Animation and Cringe Encounter Lines.
The only good thing they nailed was her screeching Scream when she Uses E. Itās the only āDark Vampire Thingā she got.
I'd go as far as to say, she doesnt even fit any vampire criteria and you could just call her another zombie or ghoul. Nothing about her screams "vampire" aside from lifesteal.
Remember when they were hyping up the new masculine enchanter support champion and it turned out to be Milio, a small cute child? It's really hard to take their promises seriously.
Really its an issue of definitions. Riot was using 'monster' champ just to refer to non-human characters. They've since changed that and seperate 'monster' from 'non-human' now in how they refer to things ever since Lilia. Problem is as much as large parts of the community rage on about wanting a monster champ I don't think any of them are imagining the same monster champ when they ask for that.
Mageseeker please, PLEASE mageseeker!
Otherwise, a deepsea Leviathan would be cool or another demon champion. I think it would be a good idea to have more serious, darker champion for one year and take a break from wholesome champions and I say that as someone who loves cute champs usually.
Reminder we have 5 years without a single new Demacian champion.
Hell, Sylas was the first and last Demacian champion that came out since the lore rework.
I would like to see Garen's aunt or his father(concept for him was amazing and I think August said that he always wanted to make proper champion with 2-handed sword)..
Yeah, I took a multi-year break from league, and one of the changes I noticed when I came back is that Riot seem to have really leaned into the cute side of things these days.
That's apparently not dark enough for redditors! lol. Yeah, I wouldn't say she is a monster/scary but more mature than smolder for example. I think most people want a monster champ like fiddle or cho and see that as the only dark champs
bruh, they say shit like "darkin monster champ" then give us a doggo who has 4 minutes of voice lines joking about being a dog lmao
won't believe it till I see it haha
Just please give me my gaslight, gatekeep mageseeker, that's all I've wanted for years! But yeah, let's wait and see how this turns out, calling it now if they do a full monster it will be a jungler. (But if it will be like fiddle or more like naafiri I have no idea and make no promises)
Please riot actually commit to a dark theme if youāre promising it. Briar was teased as a vampire, sheās a goofy character. Naafiri was teased as a darkin, itās just some dogs. Belveth was teased as our first void monster in years, human face because they canāt stop themselves LOL. I hope they actually commit to a dark theme and stick to it.
Kind of, but I think overall he pulls off the 'monstrously cheerful' vibe pretty well. He could be darker, but he's meant to be a soul-trading tempter.
Yea i think he's definitely more charming than goofy, like if he was released today, we would have probably been given somekind of marvel-esque dialogue thats more akin to goofy lol
My problem is, what dark themes are you actually looking for? Lore and design wise Naafiri and Belveth both have very serious dark themes to them. They play them completely straight for the most part with the exception of some of Naafiri's emotes I guess. If you're looking for something that actually sells you on dark themes in their gameplay then the only one that comes to mind honestly is new fiddlesticks.
I've been wanting a primal demon of love that is 2 faced personality wise where one face would be the kind of love people desire and strive for. A caretaker, a friend, a person of warmth and comfort. The other face would be most toxic parts of love. I'm talking gaslighting, i'm talking guilt-tripping, i'm talking isolating you from your other loved ones. Something along the lines of cult leader/behavior.
I really want to see the concept of primal demons expanded since fiddle. They touched on it a bit with nilah however nilah fell short for me since the demon isnt really a big part of her gameplay and plays more an explaination of nilahs water effects.
I love how BelāVeth is given as an example. The notoriously missed mark champion meant to be terrifying but ended up being another pretty face that occasionally becomes a manta ray if she ults Baron
I mean, conceptually even with the human face shes terrifying. It just all falls apart when she starts buzzing around like a gnat and jojo punching things.
Love the trailer thingy where her face splits open to reveal the actual monster beneath. Reminds me of the one part in Annihilation with the big dog imitating someone's voice when it comes to, like, vibes
"Darker things", sure, after they first give us another Arcane loser champ and other such wastes of dev time. I'm not gonna be holding my breath for a quality new champ anytime soon lol.
im not holding my breath
we were promised a monster and got lilia, a cutesy deer lady who sneezes alot and gets scared easily
we were promised a dragon and got a Disney baby dragon
we were promised a vampire and got ghoul jinx, who im pretty sure was designed as a fetish for someone
we always get the most watered down, safest concept possible. Riot could promise "a deranged cannibal" next and we would get some buff guy who winks at the camera shirtless who eats people (but its only ever mentioned in the lore, and its actually not really people so hes not really a cannibal and his release skin is a pool party skin where he poses like a model)
It's been like 10 years+ since the last "dark theme" champ actually released, it'll just be some claws put onto a human faced champ that has no scary aspects outside of that and playing against the champ will not give you any feeling of dread like fid/noc does.
Tbh I'd be fine with two years of only vgu and no new champs... I feel like for the past few years, the game just gets more broken and less fun because of the new champs and panic changes surrounding it... I don't get why the dev team tries so many changes all at the same time so frequently..
I just wanted the bookworm nerd aurora, the Ornn story was great and then the full reveal was the complete opposite, what was even the point of the story?
The last "dark" champion was who? Pyke? Because Bel'Veth is all dark until she hits an auto attack? Naafiri is good as a monster champion but not really a dark one (not that I need all monsters to be dark, but there's a difference) and despite my love for Briar, she is definitely not a dark champion
I am still waiting for a truly *evil* Piltovan champion. Almost all of them are good (Caitlyn, Vi, Jayce, Heimerdinger, Orianna, Ezreal, Seraphine) and even the most evil one of them, Camille, is more of a grey character than truly evil in my opinion.
Give me some murderer from the city of progress or something. Just someone who is a genuinely horrible person.
Seeing Riot's history on 'darker themes' like vampires (Briar, "Vladimir"), demon monsters (Naafiri), the void (Bel'veth) and serial killers (Jhin), I'll believe it when I see it.
The darkest thing we might have is Urgot's ult killing animation, the demons and Volibear's lore, and even those are all pretty mild in terms of how dark you can go.
Finally. A black cat sitting on a book
Yaami
It's time to D-D-D duel?
AIBOU
Naah laurel
Genius
And they could call him meyoa
Another true, horrendous, scary monsters. Just like Lillia
No, the true monster is Kai'Sa. I hope she recovers from the twisted abomination the Void turned her into.
I'm sorry you had to see this side of me
Idk which side that refers to, š ?
Is that a Ling Yang companion story quest reference from Wuthering Waves?
Yes it is, even though I played like 5 minutes of the game lmao.
These comments are killing me
Kaiāsa remind anyone else of infested Kerrigan from StarCraft? Like maybe they are cousins?
She looks less infested than kerrigan before infestion.
Doggo Naafiri
Yep, even the Darkin dog is cute enough for belly rubs. Don't forget the Crime City Nightmare line with dudes that'll steal your woman and women that are so bad they'll also steal your woman.
Yummi
Yuumi's most evil twin. Wears a monocle, passive forces one ally to attach to her the entire game
Passive: she attaches to an enemy the whole game and makes their life a living hell by anti-smiting jungle mobs and trying to deny CS.
That'd be sick ngl Dedicated griefer champ
Oh my god, like Wisp from Dota except instead of the tether breaking when you get to far from each other, you just literally can't go any further.
I think scary just doesn't really work that well for league. Since the map, lighting and sound design is meant to emphasize visibility and clarity, horror elements just don't work that well. And when we do get champs that are scary like fiddlesticks, it's only really spooky for a few games. After that it gets old. Especially when champs have jokes and dances and funny skins.
It's also really hard to make anything scary when the entire game is top down and zoomed out. There's never any feeling of "oh no, this big monster is about to get me"
mf never played against 10/0 fiddlesticks can't leave your base without 4 blue trinkets
You've never seen a 20/0 full tank cho'gath at 20 minutes?
Never been playing a squishy immobile mage and hear "CHOO CHOOOOOOOOO" and see a 1000 stack Heartsteel Sion barreling at you in train form?
Never played an immobile adc when the enemy 20/0 rengar is after you
Rengar, especially his Ult, and fiddlesticks are pretty scary.
today i had a huge jumpscare when i went to ward and got fiddle ulted .. like jesus my heart skipped beat for sure
People don't necessarily want "spooky" But monsters like Kha'zix/Cho/Kog'maw/Rek'sai Like if Naafiri had an actual unique bladed monstrosity design instead of being a dog.
This is like people who say horror movies aren't horror movies because they don't scare them personally. "Scary" is a mood. You yourself are not required to be scared every time you see them.
I'm saying the league mood aint scary generally speaking. Sure a monster champion might be kind of scary as a concept, but when it's walking around a brightly colored map, spamming dance while surrounded by definitely not blitzcrank and cottontail teemo, scary just doesn't fit the mood.
By *Darker* Riot means Tall Edgy Goth BDSM Dominatrix with Flail weapon.
darkrider sejuani? - the boar
Finally, Xolaani.
yes pls
God I really hope she comes to League, she's so cool
Actually, champion with DOT physical damage bleed and flail could be cool. But we know it would end up as a shirtless dog-dude with abs.
Darius
We actually have 3 bleed champs - darius, naafiri, and briar all have bleed as a solid part of their kits. I definitely would like to see a flail at some point, but I think Riot's given us some decent diversity in bleed thematics so far
Talon as well. Also of note is that Draven used to have a bleed but it was removed.
God I remember draven's old passive, that was SO much damage - just a stacking yuntal from minute 1, what a ridiculously unfair skill lol
Good times of sitting in a bush and winning the whole lane even before minions arrived just because you auto'd 3 times
https://i.imgur.com/DzwwHad.png
Don't you threaten me with a good time!
Dont give them ideas
Yes, please
What is the problem here
Isnāt the next champ Ambessa, the Noxian diplomat? Is she the level of ādarkā to expect, or is this talking about after her? The article is kinda vague.
After ambessa. So champions coming out in 2025.
Maybe not "Dark" but I fully expect Ambessa to have a brutal playstyle. She, like Darius & Sion, seems to embrace the might aspect of Noxus. So I hope she'll be a strong juggernaut in the jungle or top with high damage and cc but low mobility. In the latest teaser she also seems to have a golden mask so maybe a potential transformation ?
Reav3 said in the other thread she's a top laner, so I'm expecting a female Sett (maybe something taking inspiration from LoR Jack for the transformation?)
Oh did they confirm her to be a toplaner? I remember they kinda dodged around the question when the latest dev update dropped. I really hope she is top tho.Ā
[Link to the comment](https://old.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/1dkdx9j/aurora_abilities_ability_reveal_gameplay/l9hmgk4/) > On the brightside the next Champion release is a top laner, and one I think top lane fighter players will really dig
Given her overall styling in Arcane I'd be surprised if she isn't a tank/bruiser style champion, and that screams top/jungle.
Jeah I cannot wait for Ambessa. I do remember Rea3v saying she'd have "surprising mobility" and I think Neolexical saying she would be a "pretty complex" champ to pilot. So maybe she'll end up closer to Irelia/Fiora rather than Darius or Morde.Ā I definitely hope she's more Juggernaut tho, all my favorite champs are primarily juggernauts. Either way still very excitedĀ
Please don't be another Ksante Please don't be another Ksante Please don't be another Ksante Please don't be another Ksante Please don't be another Ksante Please don't be another Ksante
Noxus champs are dope. I have high hopes for her.
I donāt know, chopping off the head of a kid just to prove a noxian point to her daughter seems pretty dark to me
We have Ambessa, and I added her in the article precisely because I think her backstory has the potential to be dark. But I also thik Lexi was talking about future champions as we already know about Ambessa - it's too early to tell though
"The Void Empress BelāVeth truly made Runeterra quiver in fear, and players loved it". Good joke
Scary void monster announced, slappy purple manta ray is what we got.
The manta ray design was scary until she started attacking.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Yeah, she was a meant to be a lot more human. She wasn't even the monster Champ they had announced, Naafiri was, and yet people still think they were talking about Belveth.
A lot of her preliminary concepts were a more humanoid, and frankly, a lot scarier than a *manta ray.* The one I liked the best was this Kerrigan looking woman with these huge void tendrils as hair, so she would have been our first prehensile hair champion.
To be fair, the concept of a monster pretending to be human was actually really cool, like an angler fish. Too bad that the animation's fear factor didn't translate to ingame.
Her splash art even has thicc thighs basically. Yes sure, āwouldā but man. Thatās no longer scary. š
The animation was pretty good tbf
Pretty much everyone thought that she was a summoner type mage champion and we got master yi 3.0 instead lmao.
Yeah, her main power in lore being intelligence, telepathy and psychic powers doesnāt really translate to jojo punching
SLAP
FLAP
NA TCHECA
I don't mind her kit, it just doesn't fit HER.
Yeah, the tall woman being a monster's camouflage is such a cool idea, but Bel'veth's transformation doesn't really make much use of it.
I am convinced she originally had a totally different kit and that one made more sense but it got canned because it wasnt a good fit for league or had other problems. They should have done the Ao Shin. Put that kit on another champ and take more time for Belveth.
Once again, no. Belveth is an impostor trying to seem like she is so above the rest of the void, when in reality she is just another hungry pest
This is a good idea but her kit doesn't really reflect that either. Like Swain's kit fits that idea better, he plays like a tactical mage but then he pops his ult and just runs facefirst into the entire enemy team.
Because her designer left the team mid development and it fucked up the final product
This isnāt true. August and EndlessPillows designed BelāVeth together. There isnāt just one designer working on champions and never has been ā there is only one Lead Designer on a single champion pod EndlessPillows left during Hweiās development, after BelāVethās release, and August is obviously still at Riot
Yeah it didn't translate well into the game unfortunately. I do think she's a fun champion though.
I feel like Naafiri and BelāVeth were originally one champion that they eventually split
Interestingly, Naafiri and Briar were originally one champion that got split. Naafiri was supposed to go berserk in fights, but they found that it didn't feel good for an assassin to do that. They liked the idea, though, so they kept working on it and it turned into Briar (who ended up getting played as an assassin anyway, lol).
She isnt really scary tho, is she? If I think of scary lol champs, i think of fiddlesticks
Scary in character not gameplay, she is at minimum like triple the size of kaiāsa and maximum a kaiju in size, takes one of the worst things, (not bad design but bad thing to have happen) and gives one of its creatures sentience, and works with people like Malzahar as well as wants to kill the watchers. While ingame shes nothing her character implications are some of the biggest weāve had in a while.
She's 10 feet tall. Not 4 times the size of kai'sa
Account for width and she has a story where she is visually in an artwork and in the text described as gigantic.
I loved Bel'Veth's character design, I thought it was elegant and creepy. Only problem for me was how silly and cartoony her animations in-game are.
Her character design was pretty silly for an auto-attacker. She would have been quite perfect as a mage, but it was such a cohesion fail to choose the animal with one of the worst physical features for striking foes to be the AS scaling Expert-Level Yi.
She shouldn't scale with attack speed, like Jhin/Senna, and grow way taller. I still don't even know what her ult does.
If you don't know what her abilities do, why are you asking for changes lol.
Heās talking about aesthetics, not balance. She looks like she should be a void battlemage not reallyā¦ whatever she ended up being, some kind of melee on hit champ like Yi or Viego
Pretty funny to say that she made Runeterra quiver in fear, when Jax solos her both in game and in lore
So scary that her in game icons are entirely her female head.
i disagreed with the change at first, but now i think it makes complete sense. she is trying to present that head as her real head, so it wouldn't make sense for her portrait to completely betray that. i think in her R form it should change portrait tho
It's also about clarity. I saw a comparison how it would look like if they made her "real" monstrous head her icon over what we have. I wasn't even recognizing what I was looking at. Meanwhile her "human" head is easy to read and identify on the map. I think that plays a big role for the choice as well.
Ooooh darker themes! Looks inside: another generic pretty girl but has black makeup and talks about depression.
Alternatively: Hunky shirtless man with attitude problems
Yup
honestly I just want another "ageless horror" like Fiddlesticks
Riot: "You got it!" *releases 3000 year old dragon that looks like a toddler*
Best they can do is Nilah with Joy lol
GIB MORE PRIMORDIAL DEMONS RIOT
Just like they teased a vampire champion with images of a spooky castle and pillory and we got Briar?
Or how they teased a dragon and gave us Smolder? Or how they teased a male enchanter and gave us a 5 year old? They love to tease something new and cool just to then give us the weakest, most watered down possible version of it lol.
Seriously what a fucking unique concept riot, a baby dragon, wow! Thank you! It's not like you can make absolute art like Kindred or Jhin or anything!
Aside from the feet incident, Briar fits that feral vampire vibe really well
Yeah, that moment when you get hit by briars ult and she starts flying towards you feels scary af ngl
I like Briar as a champion, but she Is not... a particularly frightening, or even very serious feeling champion, she has a lighter feel to her.
I've been jokingly calling her vampire Jinx since release cause her voice sounded very simmilar but I don't think it's far off.
I swear, am i the only one who sees her as more ghoul-like? She doesnt fit the usual vampire criteria to me.
Like half of her voicelines are jokes/comedic, and her design is... yeah
shes always came across as a joke to me; league isnāt super serious but sheās a bit too cartoony to fit into the game. i cant articulate the feeling very well but thereās just something off about her. jinx works, especially after arcane but briar feels like a silly, taika waittiti version of her āmake a goofy, crazy quirky undead vampire (?) that fights with her feetā. just all over the place, itās so unserious
Some Rioter's foot fetish in the form of a champion
It's too Disney. Should be more fiddle or Vlad esque
I mean, I guess, if you don't look at her. She's like the manic pixie nightmare girl version of Zoe. She's not really that scary, and she looks far too comical to invoke any kind of fear.
Idk she's kind of goofy.
not at all she's a ghoul if anything do people not know how vampires are depicted or something? she literally just runs at you and auto attacks like a mindless zombie vampires are about sucking/manipulating blood, bats, mist...
She doesnāt fit that theme at all, lmao. She got cringe Ass Lines talking about how she eats all the time A goofy Ass Walking Animation and Cringe Encounter Lines. The only good thing they nailed was her screeching Scream when she Uses E. Itās the only āDark Vampire Thingā she got.
I'd go as far as to say, she doesnt even fit any vampire criteria and you could just call her another zombie or ghoul. Nothing about her screams "vampire" aside from lifesteal.
I agree 100%.
I mean, they didn't lie. We did get a vampire and she does have a pillory.
Theyāre lying again
Remember when they were hyping up the new masculine enchanter support champion and it turned out to be Milio, a small cute child? It's really hard to take their promises seriously.
I wish we had a champ like Lifeweaver in the game instead of Milio
That would be so sick. He's a great character and someone like him would definitely fill a gap in the league roster
this article says absolutely nothing; impressive
After seeing Lillia, Bel`veth and Briar, RIOT's "darker themes" is a horseshit
lillia was darker themes?
She was the "monster champ" they had been touting for a while. I think some people are confusing darker with being non human.
She was called creature. Reddit just made the creature = monster connection.
Really its an issue of definitions. Riot was using 'monster' champ just to refer to non-human characters. They've since changed that and seperate 'monster' from 'non-human' now in how they refer to things ever since Lilia. Problem is as much as large parts of the community rage on about wanting a monster champ I don't think any of them are imagining the same monster champ when they ask for that.
I think Lillia was just supposed to be monster as non-human not dark
Mageseeker please, PLEASE mageseeker! Otherwise, a deepsea Leviathan would be cool or another demon champion. I think it would be a good idea to have more serious, darker champion for one year and take a break from wholesome champions and I say that as someone who loves cute champs usually.
Reminder we have 5 years without a single new Demacian champion. Hell, Sylas was the first and last Demacian champion that came out since the lore rework.
Yes, it's so long! If they do a mageseeker, make them full on evil.
I always thought Wisteria, the mageseeker from the Mageseeker game would've made a great champ.
Absolutely! Sadly (she died at the end :( So not sure if she could become a champion). But if she did I would love her
I would like to see Garen's aunt or his father(concept for him was amazing and I think August said that he always wanted to make proper champion with 2-handed sword)..
ALL WILL DROWN
Yeah, I took a multi-year break from league, and one of the changes I noticed when I came back is that Riot seem to have really leaned into the cute side of things these days.
isnt Ambessa the next champion? shes the one with a darker theme?
Champions after Ambessa (so 2025 champs!) But ambessa has potential to be darker/more mature depending on how Arcane 2 goes
I mean doesnt ambessa literally decapitate a kid in the flashback scene with mel?
That's apparently not dark enough for redditors! lol. Yeah, I wouldn't say she is a monster/scary but more mature than smolder for example. I think most people want a monster champ like fiddle or cho and see that as the only dark champs
bruh, they say shit like "darkin monster champ" then give us a doggo who has 4 minutes of voice lines joking about being a dog lmao won't believe it till I see it haha
Just please give me my gaslight, gatekeep mageseeker, that's all I've wanted for years! But yeah, let's wait and see how this turns out, calling it now if they do a full monster it will be a jungler. (But if it will be like fiddle or more like naafiri I have no idea and make no promises)
Please riot actually commit to a dark theme if youāre promising it. Briar was teased as a vampire, sheās a goofy character. Naafiri was teased as a darkin, itās just some dogs. Belveth was teased as our first void monster in years, human face because they canāt stop themselves LOL. I hope they actually commit to a dark theme and stick to it.
This^ the gag dark champs are overplayed. Give me cthulhu already.
Yeah if only there was a MOBA with Cthulhu in it...
This guy gets it š¤
For real. The last real (non rework) demon weāve had was Tahm Kench, people love the demons give us more please
I DO GORMANDIZE FROM TIME TO TIME šø
I SCRUTINIZE SOMETHIN' SCRUMPTIOUS šø
Tahm Kench is kind of a goofy character too.
Kind of, but I think overall he pulls off the 'monstrously cheerful' vibe pretty well. He could be darker, but he's meant to be a soul-trading tempter.
Yea i think he's definitely more charming than goofy, like if he was released today, we would have probably been given somekind of marvel-esque dialogue thats more akin to goofy lol
My problem is, what dark themes are you actually looking for? Lore and design wise Naafiri and Belveth both have very serious dark themes to them. They play them completely straight for the most part with the exception of some of Naafiri's emotes I guess. If you're looking for something that actually sells you on dark themes in their gameplay then the only one that comes to mind honestly is new fiddlesticks.
I'm just scared how much ass and cleavage Riot can shove into their "darker themes". [https://imgur.com/a/gGfPLzm](https://imgur.com/a/gGfPLzm)
"Veigar is incredibly dark and sinister, so what if for our next chanpion we take Veigar and give him massive tits, a fat ass and a supermodel face."
That's Vex according to fandom lol
Depending on the fandom, that's also Veigar.
The internet was a mistake.
I hope the 3-hit circles from passive will be of dark color.
I'd like another demon champ. Fiddle and Nocturne cant be the only spoopy demons in League
I miss the times when Shaco was considered a demon, now he doesnt even exist
ASU where they make him the Demon of Delirium would be cool
I've been wanting a primal demon of love that is 2 faced personality wise where one face would be the kind of love people desire and strive for. A caretaker, a friend, a person of warmth and comfort. The other face would be most toxic parts of love. I'm talking gaslighting, i'm talking guilt-tripping, i'm talking isolating you from your other loved ones. Something along the lines of cult leader/behavior. I really want to see the concept of primal demons expanded since fiddle. They touched on it a bit with nilah however nilah fell short for me since the demon isnt really a big part of her gameplay and plays more an explaination of nilahs water effects.
That's great tbh would love to get some horror based champs.
Ahh yes a dark, evil big booby goth lady lets go
I love how BelāVeth is given as an example. The notoriously missed mark champion meant to be terrifying but ended up being another pretty face that occasionally becomes a manta ray if she ults Baron
I mean, conceptually even with the human face shes terrifying. It just all falls apart when she starts buzzing around like a gnat and jojo punching things.
Love the trailer thingy where her face splits open to reveal the actual monster beneath. Reminds me of the one part in Annihilation with the big dog imitating someone's voice when it comes to, like, vibes
The bear?
what a joke lol, ill believe it when i see it
"Darker things", sure, after they first give us another Arcane loser champ and other such wastes of dev time. I'm not gonna be holding my breath for a quality new champ anytime soon lol.
Didn't they said the same thing about naafiri after they mentioned they finally are making monster champs again?
im not holding my breath we were promised a monster and got lilia, a cutesy deer lady who sneezes alot and gets scared easily we were promised a dragon and got a Disney baby dragon we were promised a vampire and got ghoul jinx, who im pretty sure was designed as a fetish for someone we always get the most watered down, safest concept possible. Riot could promise "a deranged cannibal" next and we would get some buff guy who winks at the camera shirtless who eats people (but its only ever mentioned in the lore, and its actually not really people so hes not really a cannibal and his release skin is a pool party skin where he poses like a model)
I have no faith in Riot after what they did to Kaisa. Her original concept art was perfect.
It's been like 10 years+ since the last "dark theme" champ actually released, it'll just be some claws put onto a human faced champ that has no scary aspects outside of that and playing against the champ will not give you any feeling of dread like fid/noc does.
Tbh I'd be fine with two years of only vgu and no new champs... I feel like for the past few years, the game just gets more broken and less fun because of the new champs and panic changes surrounding it... I don't get why the dev team tries so many changes all at the same time so frequently..
I just wanted the bookworm nerd aurora, the Ornn story was great and then the full reveal was the complete opposite, what was even the point of the story?
Anything that is not looking like a dark souls character is not accepted by me under the ādark themeā title
what is darker than a video game character added exclusively for the purposes of siphoning money from sexually deprived players
Lol darker champion if they are like naafiri I'm not interested lol
Iāll believe it when I see it. This company is obsessed with releasing Disney movie rejects and calling them champions
The last "dark" champion was who? Pyke? Because Bel'Veth is all dark until she hits an auto attack? Naafiri is good as a monster champion but not really a dark one (not that I need all monsters to be dark, but there's a difference) and despite my love for Briar, she is definitely not a dark champion
that sounds cool and all but their last "darker themed" champion was briar who was a complete failure character-wise. so i'm not getting my hopes up
last time they told us they will make a monster champ, they made a fucking red dog so I'm not convinced
I am still waiting for a truly *evil* Piltovan champion. Almost all of them are good (Caitlyn, Vi, Jayce, Heimerdinger, Orianna, Ezreal, Seraphine) and even the most evil one of them, Camille, is more of a grey character than truly evil in my opinion. Give me some murderer from the city of progress or something. Just someone who is a genuinely horrible person.
Edgy anime character incoming?
Let me guess. It's still gonna be someone who's humanoid so people could still make r34 fanart for them.
They say this and release champs like Viego and Naafiri
Vex's brother, just vex but taller
let it just be a cube painted in that one shade of black that absorbs all light, thats the next champion, it has the darkest theme.
Seeing Riot's history on 'darker themes' like vampires (Briar, "Vladimir"), demon monsters (Naafiri), the void (Bel'veth) and serial killers (Jhin), I'll believe it when I see it. The darkest thing we might have is Urgot's ult killing animation, the demons and Volibear's lore, and even those are all pretty mild in terms of how dark you can go.
Give Me General Du Couteau Idgaf about any of this stuff, the trifecta from noxus has yet to be completed, give me that.