Champion Concept: Noki, The Dynamic Digger

Champion Concept: Noki, The Dynamic Digger

If anyone has any constructive feedback or something positive to say please leave a comment. Also if anyone wants to make a picture of Noki or icons for her abilities you have my full permission to do so.

Physical Description: Noki is a female yordle with a tool belt and dirty overalls. She is blue in color and has a light fur covering her body. She is similar in look and body shape as Tristana. I imagined her mech floating with two primary sections. The front would basically be a large drill and the rear would be a thick cylinder shaped section with a rounded back. There is a small cockpit on top of the cylinder where Noki drives. I imagine her autoattack would be a full body ram but with a quick movement so it doesn't look bulky. Either that or the drill would extend forward hitting the target then retracting back into its original place.

Noki was born and raised in the gutters of Bandle City. She was often found digging around in the dirt looking for spare parts and an occasional meal. This tendency eventually led her to be made fun of and picked on and it became a game for larger yordles to see how far they could bury her in the dirt. One day as Noki was being buried another yordle crashed into the group burying her and sent them fleeing with his sheer ferocity. He then started to walk away as Noki freed herself. She followed this mysterious yordle who had protected her then walked away to a workshop outside the city. As he opened the garage she beheld an enormous mech which looked like it was under construction. She knew she had to take a closer look so she snuck into the workshop. As she looked around the workshop she noticed blueprints in the back and stealthily opened one to look inside. As she was reading she did not notice the yordle who lived there sneaking up on her. With a pounce he pinned her beneath him and held a welding torch to her chin. “Who are you and why did you follow me to my shop?” With a calm expression Noki said, “To be your apprentice.” The yordle paused then slowly let her up. “What do I gain from taking on an apprentice?” Noki quickly answered, "You get someone to help you build this mech and fetch parts in the city as well as help you organize your workshop." The yordle stroked his chin and then said, “Ok you have one week, prove your worth to me and you may stay and help finish my masterpiece.” He started to walk away and Noki yelled after him, “Wait, what is your name?” He simply turned pointed to the schematics and then continued to walk towards his mech. She looked down at the blueprint where it said, “Property of Rumble.”

            As the months passed Noki quickly became adept at building, tinkering, fixing, scavenging, and of course digging. Many of the most important parts of Rumble’s mech came from the previously unreachable depths of the enormous Bandle City Junkyard which were now easily reached with Noki’s self made dig suit. One day she came back and both Rumble and his mech were gone. There was only a note saying, “Gone to the League.” Noki dropped the note and rushed to the back of the workshop and started gathering parts. For a week the workshop was filled with more light and noise then it had ever known, then it went silent. A few hours later Noki emerged, in the cockpit of a huge floating mech with a huge drill attached to the front. She had a huge smile on her face as her mech rolled across and through mountains until she reached the League of Legends.

League Judgment

Candidate Noki:

Noki strides through the door with a smirk on her face as if she owns the magnificent chamber that she strides through. There is a spring in her step as she skips across the room, leaving a trail of oil, dirt, and a few cogs behind her on the shining chamber floor. She reaches the great double doors and pushes as hard as she can but the doors do not budge. She checks the edges of the doors and looks for some way to bypass them or dig under them when she looks up and sees the inscription above the door. “The truest opponent lies within.” As soon as her eyes read the last letter the doors creak open revealing an inky blackness within. She throws a cog inside to see if she can hear it hit the ground but no sound comes out. Finally she shrugs and walks in to the blackness. The blackness remains and Noki reaches for her backpack for a flashlight when she realizes she cannot move and that she is buried in dirt. She tries to free herself but she cannot it is as if the dirt itself is made of rock. She looks over and sees Rumble in the same predicament. Seeing him trapped gives her strength and she struggles until the dirt collapses and she rushes to help Rumble. But he is trapped beneath layers of dirt and rock and she cannot move him. Rumble opens his eyes and says, “Why do you wish to join the League Noki?” Surprised Noki sits down next to Rumble and says, “To bury other champions and prove I am strong.” Rumble frowns and a little more dirt seems to cover his face and he repeats, “Why do you wish to join the League Noki?” “To spread my knowledge of technology and better the yordle race.” Nearly three quarters of Rumble’s face is covered with dirt as he says “Why do you wish to join the League Noki?” Panicking Noki tries to clear the dirt from his face as she says, “To prove myself equal to you so we can build wondrous creations together.” Rumble whispers as the last of the dirt is closing over his mouth, “Why do you wish to join the League Noki?”  She sinks to her knees defeated and whispers, “Because wherever you go I will follow.” Rumble bursts from the ground and turns into a wizened old man. “How does it feel to share your mind.” Noki shaken from the experience simply states, “I do it all the time with him.” The old man chuckles and helps her to her feet as they walk through a new set of double doors with nothing but light inside.

Resource System: Heat/CD

Role: Top, Jungle

Ratios based off of AP

Passive Junkyard Queen: Every spell Noki casts (excluding her ultimate) grants her heat. At 50% heat she enters the Power Zone granting all her basic abilities bonus effects. When she reaches 100% heat she starts to overheat, granting her basic attacks bonus damage but causing her to be unable to cast spells as her heat quickly drains away at a rate of 10 per second.

Q-Big Bertha: Noki spins “Big Bertha” her drill, causing continuous magic damage to all targets in a short radius in front of her. This is a toggled ability which continuously generates heat. When Big Berth is toggled off it incurs a 3 second CD. When Noki overheats her drill turns off and cannot be turned on until she stops overheating. Power Zone: When Noki is in the Power Zone Big Bertha spins faster dealing more damage. The heat generation of Big Bertha increases every second it is active. This following chart assumes you are starting at 0 heat and have not activated Big Bertha. Subsequent levels of this spell increase the damage dealt per second.

Time Active (seconds)	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
Heat Generated (that second)	0	5	10	15	20	25	30	35	40	45
Total Heat Generated	0	5	15	30	50	75	105	140	180	225

W- Explosive Exhaust: On first use Noki prepares to vent her heat. If not activated again within a 1.5 second period all heat disperses from Noki bringing her heat to 0. If Explosive Exhaust is used again within the 1.5 second period Noki explosively vents her exhaust behind her causing her to charge forward dealing damage to all enemies in her path. This ability drains all of Noki’s heat. Power Zone: Noki impales the first enemy champion she hits on her drill bringing them with her on her charge. If Noki hits terrain with an enemy impaled on her drill the enemy takes additional damage and is stunned. Can be used while overheating. Big Bertha can continue to spin while an enemy champion is impaled. Subsequent levels of this spell decrease the CD and increase the damage dealt.

E-Homing Drill: Noki drops a drill from the belly of her mech into the ground. This drill travels forward and erupts from the ground at target location dealing damage and slowing enemies for 10% in a small radius (these slows can stack).  Noki can fire 3 drills within 9 seconds before the ability goes on CD. Generates 30 heat. Noki can fire her 2 extra drills even when overheated. Power Zone: The travel speed and damage of the drills are increased. Subsequent levels of this spell increase the damage dealt.

R-Subterranean Subterfuge: Noki dives underground then emerges at target location causing the ground in a marked radius around her to be weakened for 5 seconds. If an enemy champion stands on or walks over the weakened ground they fall into a small pit and are damaged and rooted for a short time. When Noki emerges she can cast Subterranean Subterfuge again within 1 second of emerging to tunnel back to her casting point. Subsequent levels of this spell decrease the CD and increase the damage dealt and the root duration.

R-Subterranean Subterfuge v0: Noki dives underground then bursts forth at target location dealing damage. Noki leaves behind a tunnel which allied champions can click on to teleport to Noki's emerging point. The tunnel can only be clicked once by each allied champion. Subsequent levels increase the damage dealt and the tunnel duration, and reduce the CD of the spell.

When I was thinking of making my first champion I made it in small steps. What will the race be? What color will they be? Male or Female (or neither)? What roles will this character be able to play? What will their resource system be? Will they have AP or AD scaling or both? Will they be evasive and stealthy or more of a bruiser? Will they transform? All these questions and more I made a list and went down them. When I first decided on making a yordle I was thinking of what would make her special. Would she be a demolitionist like Ziggs or pilot one of Hiemerdinger’s contraptions like Corki? Then I thought, “What is relatively new and unique?” So I went through all the yordles and realized that Rumble is the only champion that utilizes heat. With this in mind I saw Ezreal’s recent post on a drilling champion and I decided that is where I would start. So I wrote the lore, attached it to Rumble’s and viola Noki was born. When I started in on the abilities while the passive was pretty easy as I just used Rumble’s heat system I immediately ran into trouble as my first concept of her was identical to Rumble with the exception of her ultimate. I wanted her to have a similar role as Rumble but would go about it slightly differently. The drill also presented itself as a problem because how would it have enough width or spread without making it enormous to be effective in combat? Would it shoot out? Would the drill spin in an arc dealing damage? I realized I needed a description of the mech itself to make her abilities. The body of Noki’s mech then went through several changes. To Rumble’s Mech with drill arms, to a tank with treads and a huge spinning drill, to a floating corki shape aircraft with drill arms, to arms with drills attached to a floating box. Finally I decided I wanted it to have a similar shape to Corki’s Ice Toboggan skin with a large drill attached to the front. With that out of the way I decided instead of having multiple drills on the front for spread I would just focus her damage to be in in front of her so she could damage multiple enemies with her drill but only if they were very clumped up. So instead of being able to do damage to multiple targets like Rumble’s Flamespitter it would have less spread but higher damage. With that out of the way I made Big Bertha, put it on a toggle and went to her second ability. I wanted her to not have a shield like Rumble but a more offensive/utility ability. I went through nets, oil slicks, a rain of drills, a offensive steroid, and a few others before I settled on a charge. However I wanted this to do more than displace her and deal damage so I thought why not make it a heat dump to use strategically. However I wanted the heat dump to always happen but didn’t always want the charge to happen so I added the mechanic to hit twice for heat dump/charge or hit once for just heat dump. Lastly I wanted a ranged slow that would go under minions so Homing Drill was made. Then I added the Power Zone bonuses and sat down to work on her ultimate. At first I wanted to make Subterranean Subterfuge a tunnel that allies could use to quickly teleport. However I realized this wouldn't work as there is no click to enter mechanic in the game yet and if you made it so that allied champions automatically got ported away when they hit the tunnel that would be just asking toxic players to abuse that. So after trying for several hours to make an allied tunnel I decided to not reinvent the wheel and make it an offensive ability rather than a utility ability. So with that out of the way Noki was completed and my first champion is done. Thank you all who for visiting my page and know that more is sure to follow. EDIT After seeing Thresh's lantern mechanic I added my original idea for Noki's ultimate.