Sejuani girds herself for battle, eagerly anticipating the inevitable conflict brewing in the Freljord. There are a number of changes coming for Sejuani, including a visual upgrade, new gameplay mechanics and a deeper exploration of her lore.
Visuals
Sejuani's lightly-armored, skin-flaunting, fleshy apparel didn't mesh with the idea of a dominating, ice warrior. Now heavily armored atop Bristle, this visual rework clearly conveys the core of our concept for the champion. She's powerful, capable of conquering the Freljord and leading the Winter's Claw to victory.
If we were going to make Sejuani look imposing, we needed make sure her fierce steed, Bristle, could keep up. Here we added bulk and power to his model, and updated the animation on Arctic Assault to show him tossing scattered foes into the air.
As with the Trundle and Karma relaunches, those of you who already unlocked Sejuani will get a free skin based on Sejuani's traditional look.
Gameplay
In order to deliver on the promise of a powerful barbarian, we've added enhanced utility to her skills, allowing her to go head-on as a massive, tanky initiator. With a powerful armor-generating passive, a potent knock-up, AoE damage and slow to go along with a tweaked version of Glacial Prison, the Winter's Wrath is now even more angry.
- Passive: Frost Armor – Damaging an enemy with an ability or basic attack grants armor and reduces movement-slowing effects on Sejuani. If Sejuani already has Frost Armor, its duration increases.
- Q: Arctic Assault – Bristle charges forward, knocking enemies into the air and dealing magic damage. The charge ends after knocking an enemy champion into the air.
- W: Flail of the Northern Winds - Sejuani's next basic attack deals bonus magic damage to the target and enemies near it. She then begins to swing her flail, dealing magic damage to nearby enemies over time. If this ability is reactivated, she immediately starts swinging her flail.
- E: Permafrost
- Passive: Abilities and basic attacks apply Frost to enemies.
- Active: All nearby enemies with Frost take magic damage and are slowed.
- R: Glacial Prison - Sejuani throws a frost-forged bola in a line. If the bola hits an enemy champion, it shatters, stunning the target and nearby enemies. If the bola reaches its maximum range, it shatters and slows enemies. All enemies in the shatter area take magic damage.
In the jungle: Sejuani's still a riding CC machine out of the jungle. In the early game, Frost Armor keeps her health high while she tears through jungle camps with Flail of the Northern Winds. The combination of Permafrost and well-timed Arctic Assault from the brush can quickly lock down an enemy for a kill. Once she has a point in Glacial Prison, the additional stun makes Sejuani's ganks even deadlier.
Mid game: Heading into midgame, Sejuani makes an excellent split-push champion, pressuring lanes with Flail of the Northern Winds, then using a combination of her other abilities to escape enemy ganks. Her full arsenal of crowd-control makes chasing or being chased a frightening prospect for the opposing team; her passive armor allows her to wade into the front line of skirmishes, secure in the knowledge that her teammates can pick targets off at leisure.
Late game and teamfights: One of the most imposing initiators in League of Legends, Sejuani can use Glacial Prison to force a fight near an objective, or hunt down retreating foes with Arctic Assault. As a strong source of magic damage, Sejuani makes a great tank to complement an AD heavy lineup. Her charge can break up a channeled ultimate or wreak havoc on the enemy team's positioning. All the while she'll absorb huge damage and protect the squishier members of her team by forcing opponents to engage on her with her impressive crowd-control.
Story
Sejuani was weaned on hardship and reared on barbarity. Where others succumbed to the harshness of the Freljord, she was tempered by it until pain became power, hunger an encouragement, and frost an ally in culling the weak. Through her ordeals, she learned that to thrive in the endless winter, one must become just as cold and unforgiving. In Sejuani's eyes, her followers either have the mettle to endure or the right to die. Once she has conquered the Freljord, she knows that those who survive will form a nation to be feared.
As a child, the leader of the Winter's Claw watched her tribe's numbers slowly dwindle. Cold and starvation took all but the most resilient. She was the only one of her siblings to survive to her tenth year, leaving Sejuani sure that she too would die in misery. In desperation, she sought spiritual counsel from her tribe's mystic. But the seer did not foretell Sejuani's death. Instead, she prophesized that Sejuani would one day conquer and unite the divided tribes of the Freljord.
Armored with absolute faith in her destiny, Sejuani pushed herself to extremes that would have killed anyone without her will to endure. She walked into blizzards without food or furs and trained while frigid winds raked her flesh. She clashed with the strongest warriors of her tribe, one after another, until her legs gave out beneath her. When she assumed leadership of her tribe, Sejuani commanded her warriors to follow her example. Under her rule, the tribe grew stronger than they had ever been.
In the end, it was an offer of peace - rather than an act of war - that began Sejuani's campaign of conquest. On the first day of winter, envoys from Ashe's tribe approached Sejuani's camp bearing a gift of Avarosan grain. Ashe's intent was clear: if Sejuani united with her tribe, the Winter's Claw would never go hungry again. To Sejuani, the gift was an insult. In Ashe's tribe, she saw men and women, slight and soft, who preferred to farm instead of fight. Her contempt for them was absolute.
Sejuani gathered her people and set the grain alight. She proclaimed that Ashe's offer of charity would bring only weakness. Stripping the envoys of their supplies, Sejuani sent them back with a message: the Winter's Claw would prove to the Avarosan that only the strong deserve to survive in the Freljord. As the grain burned behind them, Sejuani rode out with her warband to inflict the first of many painful lessons to come.
"I was cut from the ice, shaped in the storms, hardened in the cold." -- Sejuani
As tensions rise in the Freljord, the frost trolls fight to preserve their homeland. Trundle, now troll king, leads his people with cunning, brutal strength and just enough biting wit to make would-be conquerors think twice about entering his frozen kingdom. When skulls need smashing, Trundle’s the troll for the job.
Trundle has a lot of changes coming. In addition to a complete visual rework, Trundle’s story has been revamped to reflect his new direction and new charge – using guile uncharacteristic of his people to lead them through tumultuous times. His gameplay is remaining the same with some tweaks.
Visuals
What began as a kickass ice troll skin for Trundle quickly transformed into a full-fledged campaign to reinvent his look. A frost motif, instead of disease and garbage, felt like a better fit for his slowing and displacement abilities, both of which are typically associated with ice.
Trundle’s model was reimagined into a badass ice troll alpha with a commanding battlefield presence. Trading his skulking hobble for a fearsome, imposing stride, Trundle’s now one champion you don’t want to troll.
Just like the Karma relaunch, those of you who already unlocked Trundle get a free skin based on Trundle’s traditional look, complete with classic VO.
Gameplay
Trundle’s abilities are receiving a few minor changes and tweaks to add some additional functionality to Subjugate and Frozen Kingdom (formerly Decompose and Contaminate, respectively). Trundle’s ultimate now steals a percentage of your target’s magic resist, armor and health in addition to dealing damage based their max health. Also, when you stand in Frozen Kingdom you gain increased healing from all sources.
Trundle was already pretty solid heading into the remake, so we didn’t want to change his core gameplay too much. These changes are intended to round out his skillset. Here’s a complete look at his new kit:
- Passive: King's Tribute – When an enemy dies near Trundle, he heals for a percentage of their max health.
- Q: Chomp – Trundle’s next attack deals bonus damage and briefly slows the target.
- W: Frozen Kingdom - Trundle creates a zone on the ground that increases his movement, attack speed, and healing from all sources.
- E: Pillar of Ice - Trundle creates an immovable pillar of ice that bumps back and slows nearby enemies.
- R: Subjugate - Trundle drains an enemy of armor and magic resist for a short time and damages for a percentage of the opponent’s max health.
In the jungle: Trundle excels as a safe and speedy jungler thanks to the healing effects from his passive and Frozen Kingdom. If your team needs lane pressure, you can block enemy escape routes and slow stragglers with Pillar of Ice while chasing down and damaging enemies with Frozen Kingdom and Chomp.
Mid game: As the match enters mid game, Trundle’s all about counter-ganking and securing objectives. He can utilize the increased attack speed from Frozen Kingdom and the attack reset on Chomp to quickly clear lanes and pressure towers. A clutch Pillar of Ice can be used to block enemies from stealing a crucial objective like the dragon or Baron, or pressure enemies into a hasty retreat.
Late game and teamfights: Once the team fights start, Trundle makes a great counter-initiator and disruptor. With a well-placed Pillar of Ice, Trundle can stop champions while they're charging through your front line or peel off carries from the main fight. Trundle can also troll beefy tanks and bruisers with Subjugate, tearing away their defenses and health to secure quick kills.
Story
In light of his new visuals, we also took the opportunity to revisit Trundle's story. We really wanted to broaden the audience that perceived him as a compelling champion. Trundle's now a major player on the world stage, acting as catalyst for the emerging conflict in the Freljord. Mercurial as ever, Trundle seeks to preserve his people by allying with an imposing, powerful force and to prove that a reunited troll army bows to no aggressor.
Trundle is a hulking and devious troll with a mischievous streak. There is nothing he can't beat into submission and bend to his will, not even the ice itself. With his massive, frozen club, he chills his enemies to the core and runs them through with jagged shards of ice. Fiercely territorial, Trundle chases down anyone foolish enough to enter his domain and laughs as they bleed onto the tundra.
Trundle's warband once followed a foolish and cowardly chieftain. Under such a weak leader, Trundle feared he and his kin would fall prey to the other troll hordes scattered across the tundra. Though the chieftain was bigger and stronger, Trundle dared to directly challenge him, but the confrontation ended in humiliation. Where most trolls would accept defeat, Trundle did something that wasn't very troll-like: instead of his fists, he turned to his wits. Thinking on his hairy feet, he spun a tall tale about the troll leaders of old, claiming they wielded weapons of great power as symbols of their right to rule. Though he'd made up the story on the spot, Trundle wagered that if he could find or steal such a weapon, he would become the rightful leader of the warband. The trolls believed him, but none thought him capable of undertaking such a challenge. Knowing the boastful troll would die trying, the foolish chieftain agreed and Trundle departed to the familiar sound of laughter.
Alone but undaunted, Trundle ventured into the foreboding realm of the dreaded Ice Witch. There, hidden among the many ancient and dangerous secrets, he planned to find a weapon to prove his elaborate tale. He out-muscled the Ice Witch's guards and outsmarted her dark magic traps, but nothing he scavenged matched the power he'd described to his kin. Finally, he found an unexpected prize: a huge and magical club of never-melting True Ice. Grasping the weapon, he marveled at the cold power that ran through him. But then the wrathful Ice Witch herself appeared. As she summoned her dark magic, Trundle believed he had met his end and failed his people, but another clever idea struck him. With a knowing grin, he offered the Ice Witch a devious proposition: a troll army would be of much more use to her than one troll corpse. Together, he told her, they could conquer the Freljord. The Ice Witch agreed, and Trundle departed with a powerful ally - one he was certain he could defeat when the time was right.
When Trundle returned to the warband, his fellow trolls bowed to his conquest. Calling his weapon “Boneshiver,” he took a moment to enjoy the look of numb shock on his chieftain's face before he caved it in. Seizing command, Trundle announced that there would no longer be chieftains - only a Troll King before whom all of his kind would kneel. The trolls rallied behind their brash, new leader and prepared for the coming war. With Trundle leading the charge, the time of the trolls had finally come.
"Outsmart anyone you can't beat, and beat anyone you can't outsmart." -- Trundle
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ReplyDeleteWhen do you think they will be released? I need to save up and buy them :)
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