Just in time for the League of Legends Lunar Revel, three new skins have blasted onto the public beta environment, ready to be released some time in the next week. They will be 1350 Riot Points each and they are Legacy, so once they are gone they are GONE, and you won’t be able to buy them again until this time next year!
The skins are all ‘Lunar’ related: Lunar Wraith Morgana, Lunar Wraith Caitlyn, and Radiant Wukong. This is to link them with the League of Legends Lunar Revel festival currently ongoing.
Lunar Revel is an annual event that has been celebrated within League of Legends since 2012. It pays homage to the Chinese Lunar New Year and every year a few new legacy or permanent skins are released to mark the occasion, such as Warring Kingdoms Jarvan IV or Lunar Goddess Diana.
This year’s skins are all temporary and linked to the Lunar theme, as opposed to the Asian theme or a theme of a particular animal as with past years (a permanent Cassiopeia skin in Year of the Snake). All three skins grant the respective champion’s abilities particle changes and totally different physical attributes and recall animations.
The Lunar Wraith Caitlyn skin has a slight underwater theme, holding something akin to a large water pistol instead of a regular sniper rifle. She is decked out in greens and blues with huge changes to her shape in the form of resplendent armor. Each ability has been changed to have a blue, misty appearance and as a whole it gels together and works. However the particles come off a little lacklustre.
Don’t bother with the Lunar Wraith Morgana skin. It’s a joke of a skin, if we’re being honest, and branding it a ‘Legacy skin’ and charging 1350 Riot Points for it is ridiculous. There are changes to particle effects but they are merely recolorings of the previous effects. The skin itself is ugly and the color scheme simply does not work.
By far the best of this trio of skins is the Radiant Wukong. His particles have been adjusted so that the mist-like effect on his classic skin are now fully-fledged 2D cartoon clouds. This may sound lame but I guarantee it is very effective. His recall animation and taunts are okay but the thing you will want to buy this skin for is the simply beautiful design.
Wukong is kitted in shining golden armor with incredible detailing and decoration on his shoulder pads and chest plate. His stave features a suspended golden ring circling it at each end (these burst into flame with one of his abilities). He has two long antennae (which sounds strange but really works with the design). His voice has also been adapted to be a little deeper. This skin was clearly well thought out and designed by someone with great taste in art and aesthetics.
There have been murmurs of a new AD assassin item coming to League of Legends soon. Details such as name have not been released but we do know that it will cost 3000 gold, give a huge 75 Attack Damage and the active part of it will function somewhat like Zed’s ultimate ability (25% of damage you deal to a target after activating the item will be dealt after a time). The item will also give armor penetration and movement speed. This is intended to replace the sorely missed Last Whisper, which was a go-to item for AD Carries and AD Assassins alike. However the active part of it is an entirely new concept as far as items are concerned and it is exciting to see how this will change build-paths for AD champions and the landscape of competitive play. Will Zed become a thing of the past in upcoming Metas? Or will this item work in tandem with his ultimate and make him totally overpowered?
Alas, all of these questions must wait until after the Christmas season to be answered as Riot Employees are in fact human too (surprisingly) and will be taking a break just like many others.
Onwards into Season 6 there will be a great many balance changes with the new items, champions and reworks. Competitive play will be very different to past years and we are hoping to see more radical and interesting team compositions coming out based around new abilities and mechanics that have been introduced (for example Poppy’s new global knockback).
Predictions are that the old set up of having a ranged AD Carry in the bot-lane along with a support might even become a thing of the past! More and more we are seeing duos based around one or more juggernauts or “kill lanes” with two poke champions or assassins. Although this would be exciting to see brought into professional play, the likelihood is that pros would be able to exploit the ranged advantage of a marksman versus a melee champion more than in casual games, but this is yet to be seen.
As well as this, all of us in North America and Europe are hoping to see a higher success rate coming in the later stages of next year’s Worlds. This year the competition has been hot between several of the Western teams but in the end it boiled down to two Korean teams. The hope is that the world of League of Legends eSports will become a more level playing field in the presence of the new additions and rebalancing.
However despite this apparent goal of leveling the playing field, Riot seem to be increasingly pushing towards shorter game times, faster snowballing of power in game and we’re altogether seeing much more one-sided games! Games are rarely lasting longer than twenty five minutes in the Pre-Season, due to the extremely fast snowballing once you get any kind of a kill-streak. That makes the game satisfying for the winning team but cuts out much of the potential for exciting comebacks in casual play and professional alike. No one likes to spectate a complete stomp, whether they are supporting the winning team or not, it’s just not as engaging.
We’re sure that Riot will sort it all out in the end though. As they do. Usually. Just nerf Darius and it should be fine.
See you in the Rift!
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