Hypercarry Caster Idea

"Hypercarry Caster", inspired by the FFXIV Black Mage class.

Design ideas:
-Long channel times, will be interrupted when moving or crowdcontrolled, similarly to Miss Fortune's ultimate. Will however not do damage until the channel completes. The idea is to have a caster hypercarry threat that needs a team to protect them, much like for example Kog'Maw, that cannot do much by themselves.

-The mage wants to remain stationary as long as possible to be a threat. This is inspired by the Black Mage class in FFXIV, which has the highest possible damage output of all damage dealing classes if they can continuously cast spells without having to move from danger.

-Incentivizes the friendly team to protect the hypercarry from threats, and incentivizes the enemy team to shut the mage down ASAP. For example, hypercarries like Vayne and Kog'Maw, if left unchecked, will become huge threats, and this is what we wish to accomplish for the mage. Like for example Kog'Maw, the mage would be very vulnearable to long range skills and assassins, as well as diving bruisers with Crowd Control.

-Rewards strong positioning and awareness of surroundings.

-Brings some sorcery terror to the rift.


Champion kit implementation ideas:
The suggestions for the passive ability and the Q-pressed ability will form the skeleton of the champion's kit. It builds the identity to reward the champion for completing the long channels without moving, and becoming a huge threat if allowed to persist. In other words, these ideas should give an idea about how the mage champion would want to play, and what goals they wish to accomplish, and I tried my best to fit concepts that could be implemented into a League of Legends setting. Of course these would be "guidelines". Please keep in mind the "design ideas", as these ability suggestions are merely attempts to implement the design ideas.

Passive("Magical Meditation"):
Whenever -the mage- deals ability damage to an enemy champion, gain one stack of Magical Mediation, increasing magic damage dealt by a factor(for example 10%). All stacks are lost if Magical Mediation times out.

-The idea behind this passive is that the longer the mage is allowed to throw out spells, the more increasingly dangerous they become to the enemy team. If the mage is forced to reposition, they might lose the entire buff, thus losing out on crucial damage. Also if the mage is CC'd, they could lose out on the buff, if it were to time out. As for the buff parameters themselves, damage bonus and timers, they would have to be playtested in a League environment, but the gist of it is that the mage should be punished for having to move too much without casting their Q.

-In a gameplay perspective, the mage wants to "open shop", and stay there as long as possible so that they won't have to move and risk out on losing their damage buff. In addition, the mage starts off without stacks, so that the enemy team won't be taking unfair amounts of damage before they have the chance to reach and shut down the mage.


Q-ability(should have some "oomph"):
Deals magic damage(high ap scaling) to target in range. Channel time has to finish before the spell goes off, and will be interrupted by movement or Crowd Control effects. Has no cooldown so that one can restart casting immediately after breaking the channel, but the ability itself has a long channel time(an example could be 2.1 seconds with maximum Cooldown Reduction, meaning a 3.5 seconds base cooldown, which takes long in a League teamfight).

-This is the bread and butter damage skill for the mage. To feel like a DPS mage, there shouldnt be a cooldown between finishing a cast and starting the next one. An idea is to make the channeling time scale down with cooldown reduction. A terribly long channeling time could feel horrible early game, and a short channeling time could feel unfair to the enemy team lategame, so I would personally suggest a constant channeling time/cooldown across ability rank-ups.

-Depending on playtesting, the skill could be targeted, or a skillshot. However, a skillshot with a possibly 2-3 second channeling time could maybe feel difficult to hit. Having it targeted would also open a method of counterplay: walking out of range before the channel time finishes, which would also allow for a longer range without the mage becoming a huge poke threat.

-The ability should have some real oomph if it finishes casting in the terms of damage dealt, like the satisfaction of hitting a wellplaced damage nuke. Imagine the DPS of a hypercarry over the ability's channeling time, placed into one singular hit, though the actual damage dealt should be balanced according to playtesting, and with consideration that the Magical Meditaiton buff should come into play.


Kit reflection and remaining abilities:
The proposed Passive and Q ability would form the skeleton of the champion's kit, accomplishing the fantasies listed under "design ideas", in other words, the main gimmick of the kit. The mage wants to threaten the enemy with casting loads of consecutive damage spells, and forcing action towards the mage. As for the rest of the skills, they would have to cover glaring weaknesses or complement the existing kit.

One glaring weakness that I can immediately identify is that the mage will have a difficult time chasing enemies, due to long channeling times and being immobile. Amongst the suggestions below are a couple that improve the mage's movement in a way that can solve this problem, in addition to opening up other gameplay possibilities.

Other suggestions for abilities that build onto the champion design:
A haste buff that decreases the channel time slightly.
-This could be very powerful, meaning it could be a good candidate for an ultimate ability.
This will make the mage very threatening if they can start stacking up Magical Meditation quicker. Another way to balance this ability is having the mage create an area around themselves that grants the hastebuff while they stand in it, encouraging them to preposition well, and encouraging their friendlies to let them stay there. On a long cooldown, the mage would have to be certain that the enemies will be in their casting range to make full use of the haste buff, given an "area buff implementation". This is taken directly from the FFXIV ability "Ley Lines".

A dash to a nearby ally for repositioning.
-This could be very powerful, meaning it could be a good candidate for an ultimate ability.
The skill allows for repositioning in a teamfight, letting the mage chase down foes(if the mage's allies are ahead), or reposition to somewhere they can cast their spells safely. The skill shouldn't be very frequently usable, as the mage is supposed to have to position well.
This also opens up the opportunity to give a late-scaling fantasy, as the mage will have an opportunity to survive ganks early, given that they have an ally nearby to dash to(more teamwork incentives!). This is taken directly from the FFXIV ability "Aetherial Manipulation".

A free instant cast of a spell.
-This would cast a damaging ability instantly, but put it on a cooldown for the same time as the channeling time. This would not increase DPS, but would allow some semblance of movement if the mage would get dived, as well as chasing potential. It could also lead to very strong burst, and the quick cast would facilitate refreshing the passive Magical Meditation buff. Although this leaves the mage "without weaknesses" for one cast, the mage will be wanting to cast multiple spells per teamfight, and having one of them cast instantly would allow for smooth gameplay in terms of bursting down foes or chasing them. This is taken directly from the FFXIV ability "Swiftcast".

A toggle or a single use to turn the Q ability into an AoE, or an AoE version of the Q ability with weaker per-target damage.
-Clearing waves with a long channeling single target spell might feel absolutely terrible. This AoE ability could also lead to some devastating teamfight combos to melt multiple grouped enemies. The spell needs to deal less damage than the single-target version so that the single-target version is incentivized, but using the AoE version properly on multiple targets is highly rewarded.

Closing thoughts
Why this "stationary mage" fantasy?
-I believe that this could feel highly rewarding to play, both for the player and their team to facilitate for the mage to do high DPS and cause havoc for the enemy team. Like I mentioned earlier, the suggested skills take heavy inspiration from the Black Mage class from FFXIV, which in practice is "easy to learn, but difficult to master", and oh so rewarding when mastered. FFXIV also has a PvP mode where many of the suggested design ideas come to life for the Black Mage, implemented in a different way to suit FFXIV itself, and playing it made me wish for the playstyle to possibly find a place in League of Legends.
An example scenario of the champion in play in League of Legends, could be the mage stacking their damage buff, and unleashing increasingly strong blasts of destruction, possibly combining them into an instant cast(given implementation) to react to a teamfight situation to burst down a priority target, or to move to adjust to the fray.

What would define a hypercarry caster?
-There are DPS mages in League of Legends, like for example Cassiopeia. However, their damage output doesn't compare to hypercarries like Master Yi, Kog'Maw, Kayle etc, but they make up for it by having team utility. The proposed hypercarry caster kit would be "selfish", like a hypercarry should be, only caring about self-utility and dealing the biggest DPS numbers.

If a Riot employee is reading this, first of all, I'm honored! Second of all, if some semblance of the idea is used, I would love if the champion ended up with the name "Azura", alluding to my summoner name ;)


Best regards,
Azura Queen, EUW