League of Legends: Viktor and Champion Releases

A new champion has risen to the challenge of the league, Viktor the Machine Herald and best of all he’s an ability power mid (my favourite type of champion). I personally feel a new champion is a big event in the community whether they realise this or not. In normal queue you'll notice a lot of players instant lock Viktor and quickly followed by a queue dodger who wanted to play him. During this time I prefer to just pick another lane.

Luckily I play with a pre-made team and if there is only 4 of us online we normal queue, normally allowing me to pick Viktor. There were no patch changes with the release of Viktor, so I just want to focus on Viktor and give some insight into how new champions affect league of legends.

 

Viktor, the Machine Herald
I’m going to be honest and say Viktor has been my favourite release since I’ve started playing league of legends. I’ve been levelling laser and pretending I’m a colossus (starcraft 2). I’m still looking into which is better; levelling Q first or E. I will give a caution to people searching for guides during this time. Most guides released at this point are educated guesses. You can use these early guides as a starting point.

Don’t build the same items every game regardless of enemy composition; item choices must be reactive to both your lane opponent and the situation. Every game I’ve played so far has had different masteries, runes and item builds. You should try doing this yourself, finding what feels right and what doesn’t.

I’m currently having the most success with full AP runes and 21/0/9 masteries, the core item build being Morello's Evil Tome into Augment: Death then Deathcap. This build is good for levelling Death Ray (his E) first. If you get the second blue buff off your jungler you’re going to find you can push anyone out of the lane, the mass cooldown and infinite mana with the damage of laser is quite powerful. If your jungler is buff dependant like fiddlestick, you’re going to have to rethink your build slightly.

Although Viktor isn’t the biggest damage dealer or best utility mid, his strength is in Augment items. Each Augment allows Viktor to change roles almost instantly. If the enemy have good escape abilities you can consider upgrading your q ability to chase down enemies. Although I have not fully tested upgrading Gravity Field (his W) there are situations it could be useful for.

For example your Vayne is doing well upgrading allows you to catch enemy champions for an easy kill without putting yourself in danger. Upgrading e for pure damage is what I believe is the best, for 1200g you’re getting +45 ability power and Death Ray deals 30% additional damage.

My only grievance is that Gravity Field is not an instant stun and has a short cast range. I can however overlook this flaw because chained with another crowd control is its true power. Firstly it slows enemies, shortly after that it stuns them for 1.5 seconds. Gravity Field also stop the enemy from helping the trapped victim, because if they jump in they will also get caught by Gravity Field.

It’s too soon to tell whether or not Viktor will be a top pick in solo queue, but I believe he does have a place in pre-made teams. His Gravity Field is prefect in combination with other heavy AoE champions such as Kennen or Galio and his poke damage is very good with proper farm. I am quite excited to see how the top teams will use Viktor.

Champion Releases
In this section, I want to look away from Viktor and more into champion releases in general. The first two weeks for a new champion is the time where players find out if the new champion is balanced, underpowered or overpowered. Riot is pretty good at releasing balanced champions, but sometimes they get it wrong.

The first 2 weeks of Fizz being released is a good example of when Riot gets it wrong. However they were quick to fix it and do some reductions on him. They had to be careful not to nerf him into the ground, but regardless of if the actual champion is balanced a nerf or buff will have a direct impact on the popularity of the champion. As even though Fizz is still a viable champion, the patch to him will keep him unpopular until either a professional team use him in a tournament with success or if riot give him a buff.

I personally keep a close eye on the first month of a new champion’s life, seeing if Riot makes any changes and to also see how the community react to them. I normally ignore most of the forums crying about imbalance during this time, because normally they are wrong or they are just looking for a place to cry about a loss against said champion.

After the first month is when the champion settles in, but can sometimes be overlooked during this time because of other new champion releases. Never stop playing these new champions if you believe they have a place, even if they don’t fit within the current meta game. You might find a champion you thought was underpowered to actually be a good pick during the draft mode. Also if you get good at an underused champion, the enemy will have a hard time against you because they are not used to going against that champion.

Lastly I compare the champion I’m interested in with new champions released. It’s important to understand that new champions will affect every other champion. If you have a friend or teammate willing to help you, I recommend testing out champions against each other. An example I wish to test for myself is to see which top champions Ahri can do well against. I believe she is more like Akali that needs to farm top than a standard AP mid. The results of this test could change how my team decides what champions to pick during our ranked games.

Summary
In today’s blog we had a small look at Viktor and my personal thoughts on him. We also looked at Champion releases, how they affect you and how the community react. I’m very interested in feedback and thoughts on this blog, so please leave them in comment section below.