This month, a veteran member of Riot’s champions design team shared some important information with the League of Legends community regarding Aurelion Sol. Aurelion Sol’s appearance is top-notch, however, his skill set needs some work because it’s bad.
Riot Games – Why do they Rework the old Champions?
Over the past couple of years, we’ve noticed something about Riot – reworking the champions seems to be mandatory as LoL continues to get more new champions. Why would new champions cause Riot Games to rework the old ones?
Long story short, Riot reworks the old champions to keep things fresh.
Think about it for a second, if they continued to introduce new champions in the mix, what would become of the old ones? Some of the champions would sit in the background, never to be picked again.
So, in order to make sure the old champions, like Aurelion Sol, continue to get the love they deserve, they must rework them. Let’s say someone has Aurelion Sol as their main; when a new champion is released, they may attach to that and forget about Aurelion Sol. However, once Riot reworks Aurelion Sol, players will return back to him.
Aurelion Sol Rework
In terms of rework, this could consist of many things because there are many different ways a character could be reworked in League of Legends. They could add some new features to make the champion appear new – take the latest changes done to Wukong as an example. They could change the outdated details – a prime example of these changes would be Volibear and Fiddlesticks. You see, when a character is going through a rework phase, this doesn’t necessarily mean Riot plans on changing the entire skillset.
There are times where Riot has put champions through major changes, completely reworked them, and only keeping the champions name – there are times where they have changed everything, including the skills and appearance, and have kept the names.
Take Aatrox as the latest example of this. When this champion went through the last remake, looking at Aatrox, it was hard to believe it was him. In fact, after his rework, there’s no trace of Aatrox. When a champion is reworked to this extent, we’ve noticed that they had poorly designed skills that needed to be changed.
This rework only applies to champions with poorly designed skills and need to change 100% only. There aren’t really such champions in LoL right now. Taking a look at the early champions like Annie, they’re not so bad to the point that they need a complete overhaul.
According to what a senior member on Riot’s champion design team stated, Aurelion Sol is a champion that needs a complete rehaul, just like what Aatrox went through. While he has scored a 10/10 on appearance, his skill set is lacking and needs to be reworked.
Here’s a quote from August, a senior member on Riot’s champion design team:
“Did you guys ask about Aurelion Sol’s visual upgrades? I don’t think it needs a visual upgrade, Aurelion Sol needs a comprehensive gameplay upgrade like the Aatrox remake to make things clear. I think the face, image, 10/10, we should remove all his techniques and remake completely and turn Aurelion Sol into the coolest space dragon possible. I think an Aatrox-like update to Aurelion Sol will be terrific because that character has so much potential to exploit. “
Riot August via Twitter
At the moment, Aurelion Sol doesn’t have a weakness in his skill set. The problem with Aurelion Sol is when players use him; there’s something that makes them unhappy when using his skills.
The idea behind the DPS champion is acceptable; however, simply pushing the W button and being done isn’t that good of design – this is a design that could use some work.
Look at Azir as an example of an excellent DPR-style wizard. With Azir, you have to click to have sand soldiers attack continuously – it’s not complicated in the least, but what it does is create action games that have to take part in.
Then you have Aurelion Sol’s gameplay, and it’s not too bright. All you have to do is use E to fly, and when in combat, press W – it isn’t exciting right now.
When Will the Changes be made?
When Riot admitted that they planned on making changes to this champion, they stated that they are waiting until after 10.19 – Worlds Patch – to make balance changes to the champion. However, with the latest patch, we saw some surprises.
With those thoughts in mind, do you think there will be an increase in Aurelion Sol’s pick rate? Control mages aren’t very popular right now due to them having a playstyle that isn’t that attractive. What are your thoughts on this champion?
