@@deronawuah2136Xolaani in lore was a healer, but now she is a blood bender. Make her like Renata, but on steroids. That or you can make Joraal the support
A better comparison for her passive instead of Kindred or Yorick would definitely be Elise. Both Champ's passives are very similar in a lot of ways, that it feels odd that she wasn't given a mention here.
This is so weird. My first thought when I saw her packmates was also Elise, but I've already watched 5 or 6 videos about Naafiri and not a single one of them mentioned the spiderlings, lol. Maybe Elise has been so long out of meta that everyone forgot about her existence.
Well, I mean, they do good damage. And Elise can command them: q to attack the enemy as a mini dash, e as a dash, w to increase their attack speed. And the damage of her spiderlings heals her.
@@soulglitcher its not a free spawn like naafiri passive with the cd. She needs o hit her abilities on something in human form to get the spiders in spider form. So elise can summon a lot compared to naafiri cus she can swap forms by the time naafiri gets like 2 dogs.
the whole time when he mentioned her passive, especially when he said "She'll be the first character that spawns interactive live minions" i was screaming at my screen "ELISE!!! WHAT ABOUT ELISE!!!" My poor spider gal is forgotten
I believe recording these videos' voiceovers a lot of time before their release kind of hurts the quality sometimes. By now most people know she's a midlaner, by now a lot of people know her abilities and there is even footage you show of people playing her, so you end up making a lot of assumptions that don't make sense anymore. I absolutely love your content and want to se it get even better and more popular, and I believe that is a point of improvement
@@soiscrs four videos have come out since Naafiri's announcement, and we got clarification on her specifics about two weeks ago, so there might be a priority issue.
Yeah, Vars was never a channel about accuracy. He just has a nice voice. If you watch these videos for genuine information, you're in trouble as he doesn't even take the time to proofread his scripts.
@@SaiKisaragi On the surface he's fine, he just gives super surface level insight and is more quantity over quality. He also holds some super strong biases from time to time due to being a toplane one trick.
I love the reception Naafiri got, in my opinion the monster champions are the most original and interesting designs and I really hope Riot realized there is a lot of people interested in these designs too, I understand humans and humanoids are more appealing to the mayority (China), and I'm ok about getting more human champions in general, but please Riot don't leave us for this long without a proper monster champion, at least one per year??😭😭
@@icedacreammaybe they should actually give monster champs accessible kits(Sol's playrate went from .5% to 3.8%, a 7x increase, because his design is awesome but his kit was inaccessible), not recatotagorize popular monster champs like Warwick and Khazix as not being monsters, and actually make good skins for them? Look at Cho'gath's most recent skin and tell me that it didn't sell because he is a monster, and not because it looks terrible on his outdated rig(because it's awesome in the splash).
@the_last_ballad while it's true that monster champions usually have uncommon kits and that make them less unpopular and there are popular monster champions like Thresh, Aurelion Sold and Nautilus, it's also true that a sexy women with big tits and shirtless young men are more attractive than monster champions for horny bitches like most of China and Twitter users xD, still idc if they are more popular and sell more, i demand more original and amazing designs 😡
@@VarsVerum Have you gotten a closer look of her face? It's not real, it's all for show, her face/head is a bait, just like an angler fish, if you remove her face (like her ult does) She has her real face in her chest, she's a true monster.
@@VarsVerum And Ornn is a bipedal brickwall of a person with the most monster-ish part being his Ram head. Bel'veth is a monster champ, because last I checked no human had a stingray body.
When i play her she reminds me a LOT to talon Both have a neutral ability, can roam well, have an all in, is better as a assassin but can build a bit bruser, has a bleed that can prock for extra damage She si really fun and doesnt feel broken She is an assassin so people Will complain no matter what when she comes out but her design un general is simple, fun and fair
Fair always is relative and having such a long ranged targeted dash with burst damage ... that's pretty toxic for any champion that is not a bruiser/tank
doesn't feel broken just tells me you didn't lane against her yet. All assassins had a modicum of skill and common sense required to deal that much burst dmg, not this one.
Irs kinda funny to hear that she's not broken. She was broken in all elos until a nerf or two. Then she was consistently nerfed cuz she was still broken af in low elo
Naafiri is a very nice champ. Her abilities are easy to understand and easy to learn. Her entry skill level is very low, honestly the easiest assassin champ to get into, but her skill cap is much higher than expected due to her lower health and durability compared to all other darkin and even compared to other assassins. Her q will save her on occasion for sure, but if she fails to kill target with her combo, then her damage output drops drastically along with chance of her winning that fight. Ability haste and ad are her two favorite stats to get, as she needs her abilities back quick.
@@BlackTheDog Viego was supposed to be jungle, people played him mid/top until they nerfed him 50 times, she might get played jungle, but if they really want her to stay mid they can do it
5:30 quick little thing, the champion spotlight tends to hint at what role the champ is supposed to be in! She is intended to be a midlaner, but i REALLY hope top and jungle will be options too
thematically, it seems like jungler would fit the most. if i were to design a wolf monster fighting with a pack, i would design them around the jungle. it makes sense for such a champ to roam the map and hunt opportunistically
I would really love to see you return to this champ now that we've seen her underperforming consistently for several patches. I have been maining her for a while and although I love her design and lore I feel like her abilities are fundamentally flawed because Riot keeps insisting that she's an Assassin but she has no escape tools other than just walking away, which makes her pretty useless in the mid to late game given how much burst damage we see at all tiers of play.
Although prone to change this is what I’ve gathered when playing her on pbe - her ult only resets *once* and it’s on first kill, no infinite resets - Yes, her dogs can bodyblock skill shots, the amount of naut hooks and morg ball that should have hit me but didn’t is hysterical - She can perfectly build bruiser, although her damage drops off a cliff, it does help her sustain, so it’s a trade off depending on what you need - I don’t think vars mentioned it but hitting with your abilities (and auto I think) on champions reduces the spawn cd of your passive, you land more hits then you spawn more up to a max of 2 dogs and 3 when you’re lvl 9 and higher - her dogs are deceptively tanky, last I checked they can tank more than 1 auto and aoe abilities like morg w deals minimal dmg to them, most if not all single target skill shots one shot them tho like ez q - *IMPORTANT* to pet the good girl you need to combo it, first do ctrl + 1 twice, then same thing for ctrl + 2 (twice) when the headpats are done, then ctrl + 3 (twice) when she’s on her back and then you can keep spamming ctrl 3 to cycle the belly rubs.
7:14 Technically azir's dash is a non-free targeted dash that can be body blocked. He has to dash to a soldier and when he collides with a champion he stops and generates a soldier for w.
this champion is a visual clusterfuck, keeping track of what shes doing in a teamfight is probably gonna be real hard edit: I really hope she is gonna be a kiting melee, Ive missed that playstyle since the evelyn rework (ty for that riot)
I believe that Varus wasn't entirely retconned to be a Darkin, it's just that they wanted to make more champs like him and so gave what he was a name retroactively
Really cool champ and I cannot wait to see the next Darkin, a support. Hope they can do something really cool with some sort of shield and give us something dreadful. 😁
@@bullettime1116 Joraal is a Darkin shield whose mind was particularly corrupted by the void because he was right on the front lines so he probably fought then for longer. He has essentially extreme PTSD and his lines sound absolutely desperate, unlike the others who seem angry or even content with their new situation, Joraal is absolutely terrified. There aren't many voice lines but I feel bad for him. Some of the lines are: "Aatrox...? Where are you?!" "I held the line! I HELD IT!" "It waited in the dark... The void" "It grows in me!"
Only thing i think is 200 years is the w, specifically the lategame w, because with the heal and shield built into the kit, naafiri can sponge a lot more damage than most assassins, so that means that naafiri can engage from barely on screen and still probably kill an enemy squishy whether ahead or perfectly even. If the scaling range were lowered i think the champ is perfectly fine
Funny how both naafiri and warwick were also humans that got turned into wolves, Naafiri through her dagger being picked up by a wold, and warwick through singed's stuff.
Riot should definitely make more darken champs for the game but they should also make darken skins for existing champions. Personally I like the idea of a darken pantheon or sion
Darkin skins would be a great way to add some of the LoR Darkin without overusing it for champions. The Harp, Orb, Shield, and spear would be easy fits for Sona, Braum, and Xin Xiao(pantheon could work, but a spear and shield is his signature, while Xin only uses a spear)
7:14 I do believe that Azir’s E counts as a targeted dash by using his sand soldiers as the target. Granted, he can make new ones on the spot and reposition them easily, but it’s still technically a targeted dash that can be blocked.
Azir E isn't targetted in the slightest, because Sand Soldier are coded weirdly. You just dash to the closest sand soldier to where you clicked to in range And honestly they should just remove it stopping when you collide with a champion, originally that was the condition to get the shield, but nowadays it's just an annoyance that soemtimes just randomly kills you for no reason
@@xolotltolox7626 Didn’t it also have a bit of displacement on release like Gragas E? I also majorly agree that hitting someone with Azir E feel really bad as it makes him a sitting duck, so I think they could easily remove a ton of his elo skew by giving him the QoL feature of not getting fkd by someone unintentionally bodyblocking it. either that or I just have to get good :P
@@kreeperkiller4423 they could also make it so sand soldiers are selectable for Azir you don't dash the wrong way, because the one you want to go to is slightly out of range
@@xolotltolox7626 It’s honestly way more rare for me to accidentally go to the wrong soldier than bump into someone and die for it. I treat the ability as one that I need to hover over the soldiers to use, so it nearly always goes to the right one.
@@ethanstyant9704 how lol, i literally said they are awful because their most powerful abilities can literally be walked out of, while nafiri point and click one shots you, no counterplay.
I feel like she was the first champion the community was excited for since ekko. I speak for myself there. I have been sooo eager to try her out and I haven’t felt that from a new champ in a while. Easily someone I’m gonna binge play
@@dominicguye8058 Her get out of the jail free card is just one small dash on her E (and an R but it's similar to using Master Yi R or Aatrox R to escape, which is not always ideal), and most of the time it isn't going to be enough. Plus, her W screams diver. She has backloaded damage in the form of wolves. If you run out of steam (e.g. burning your E) you can just statcheck with wolves and hope you can out-DPS them. She has some form of sustain, which is shield on R (and slight heal on Q if it counts). Yes, she has no hard CC but some divers can get away by having only one crowd control ability like Rek'Sai, Diana, Wukong, or Renekton (or even Rengar if he doesn't use empowered E) so I don't think it's a requirement as long as you can stick to your enemy and become annoying af. At least she should be put in two categories, as both an assassin and a diver (like Rengar).
I like how he keeps talking about how she is the first to passively spawn minions, but elise with her spiderlings exist that are very simailr to Naafiris wolves
It's impossible to play against her. That's for sure. You can't avoid her targeted dash. She will kill you in less than a second. If you flash over wall, she has second dash for absolutely no reason. They overtuned her damage, the mobs protect her from cc. There is no item in game like linken sphere, glimmer or blade mail to actually counter her. I am mad about her existence. I need to ban samira each game, because she is overpowered too, and now this mutt. It's so bad.
i like the overall design but the dogs blocking skillshots makes some matchups just unplayable. its not like heimer where it takes skill, and not like yorick where you can find openings. some matchups are simply unwinnable vs naafiri and i dont think that healthy. even if the champ isnt so op that the wr is broken. its too polarizing.,
I'm a warwick main so far, and now we get a second stat checking dog to be played in the jungle? How cool is that! I'll give her a try as soon as possible. Looks like I might become a dog main XD
Amazing video, I think her innate scaling gives her a kind of mage play style or assassin in terms of taking tp and gathering storm to safely scale to late game and take over, or ign dom tunes for early game pressure so I think the worry abt snowball reliance is relatively handled in that sense
i dont think she is broken. alot of champs can interact with her dash and she has alot of bad match ups- comparing her to sett or aphilios on released she feels pretty balanced she feels like she barely needs any tweeks.
To me, Bel'veth has been Riots admittance to still wanting to make more monster champions. What Riot did there was packaging a monster champion in a cutesy waifu-style shell, that's marketable for both chinese players and still kinda mosnter-esque and terrifying for western players. + I'm not exactly sure about that picture comparing "appealing visuals" between chinese and north american players? Asking players about "appealing visuals" could get lost in translation easily, so i'm not exaclty sure if these answers are even fully comparable. Yes, i know that comparison has been published by Riot themselves and Riot very likely understands the general preferences of us players, but mistakes, especially in statistical/ data analysis happen quickly and enjoy not being noticed. Maybe that affected that picture in some way and influenced a couple people in unintended ways...
one thing ive noticed, is that people go electrocute and not conq on her. her packmates legitimately are broke with conq, since they help proc it, getting around 8 stacks off just one q
Bel veth is confirmed since pretty much here gameplay trailer as not a monster champ but as humanoid by reav3 ( lol champ lead designer) just happened to be pushed closer to monster
The Part I don’t like, is that she doesn’t really interact with her dagger, except for her q. Aatrox and Va(a)rus really are about her Weapons. To be fair, Kayn/ Rhaast also only really use it for the Q. But otherwise she’s perfect.
I mean, Aatrox only use his Sword in one ability and is also his Q. If we think about it, Varus is the exception (which is fair because at first he wasn't a Darkin)
Thematically that makes sense, as she has effectively broken free of her prison, and her old identity, while Aatrox is still defined by his prison and Rhaast is still exactly as he was.
I meant with Aatrox, that his Main source op dps is his Q. Kayn deals big parts of damage with his w or the passive first strike. And you don’t really deal the Weapon on his w
I am necessarily going to mention how much I (and it seems the comunity) love this approach: a monster champion, that's straight to the point, easy to play and up to newer product quality. I am so sorry but this is gonna be the best champ of the year, even if it starts out broken or weak as hell
So did we just completely forget that Elise exists? She always has her spiderlings too, and it's not the most difficult thing in the world to spawn them just press W in human form And they're basically the same thing, an assassin with high mobility who gets a damage buff based on their summons I'm not saying they're exactly the same thing, of course, but there's such an obvious comparison there that we're just ignoring lol
I feel like they missed the mark with Nafiri, really had potential to be something different like a character who controls pets individually and have her whole kit revolve around that instead we get a cookie cutter kit, here have 2 dashes, move speed buff, shield and you're good to go.
I rly think that her W is to easy of an gap closer. Even at low levels it has a big range, late game, it fells like it can treverse the entire enemy jungle. I would rly don't mind the distance of the skill, if it wasn't a point and click ability, I would rather have it as mini akali ult, you can go far, but you can miss
It's extremely telegraphed and late game you shouldn't be roaming alone in the jungle anyway if you are a squishy and there's an assassin in their team
*Me playing Nafiri with infinite packmates:* "Aww, these are the greatest bunch of uncountably infinite guys I've ever met." *uncountably infinite number of packmates rush down center*
there are only 2 issues i have with the champion. the first issue is that her ult SHOULD NOT give shielding, she is an ASSASSIN, a high risk high reward class. giving her shieldingt just completely removes any risk in her kit. Second, he ult spawning 4 pack mates instantly. It removes one form of counterplay to the champion, being that if you focus on keeping her hounds down her damage should fall. but nope. riot continues to hand hold this class to no end by just letting her have 100% uptime at all times, rather than making the players think about it, so the dogs having health bars is just pointless. (note i have this same issue with yoric's maiden spawning 4 ghouls instantly.
Love your videos but the release of video before having any numbers has become a problem., Maybe a short preview or something before a proper video. I'd rather wait a little bit, I really liked our videos but it's fallen off alot with this style
The weaker Vi ulti on W is a sore point for me. Seems like if you play adc the only way to outplay her is to depend on one of your solo queue teammates to block it for you. Then again, at least she won't have easy target access in team fights
Vars trying to figure out whether naafiri will play like a bruiser/diver or an assassin solely because of her packmates and ult is something surprising yet expected.
I now see that harp is assigned to Zunite miner, but my first thought was: weren't people who stole Sona's ethwal met with misfortune and instrument always returned? It almost seemed like it wanted to be with Sona.
having played her i have no issue with her. maybe some adjustments on damage but her wolves die very quickly and if your passive is on cooldown you lose a lot of burst. additionally she is on par with xed in the sense of you have to deal with her or she picks you off.
She has the power and damage of zed, while being tankier because her dogs block skillshots and she has a huge shield (for some reason), while also being almost a point and click champion. Zed is powerful but nobody complains because he is hard. Naafiri is NOT hard. She will just have to be a permaban champion until riot does something. She just doesn't have to work at all for all that damage and that feels awful to play against, when you just know the counterplay is to just waste abilities on her dogs and not her, because if she has all her dogs up, she will one shot you at level 3 from full health.
Going by 'death by thousand cuts' playstyle, it gives me the vibe of win condition that Chun Li from SF has, many quick attacks n' neutrals, until she found an opening then go all in.
think this video ended up kinda... pointless. Because everything he said had the caveat of "im guessing, cuz it hasnt come out". Id be interested in another nafiri video after its actually been out so he can see how it performs in reality and then talk about the design off that. But this vid... doesnt really provide anything that reading her abilities or lore page doesnt. Doesnt really show his design analysis expertise cuz its All speculation.
We have every role but support for darkin, as much as i wish xolaani was added, i hope its Xolaanis final form, aimilaf to kayle scaling up. If you dont act xolaanis final form then she would be pwrfect support (look up Legends of Runeterra for final form and its EPICNESS!)
Darkin Top (Aatrox), Darkin Jungle (Rhaast), Darkin Mid (Naafiri), "Darkin" ADC (Varus), now we just need that oh so sweet support role filled
hopefully Xolaani
ever since Aatrox was released, I was hoping for an enchanter support, who boosts others by manipulating their blood.
Rito, pretty please :3
@bozidarpavlovic989 maybe either darkin fan or darkin harp. Xolanii doesn't seem like a sup.
@@deronawuah2136Xolaani in lore was a healer, but now she is a blood bender. Make her like Renata, but on steroids.
That or you can make Joraal the support
What about the shield darkin?
A better comparison for her passive instead of Kindred or Yorick would definitely be Elise. Both Champ's passives are very similar in a lot of ways, that it feels odd that she wasn't given a mention here.
This is so weird. My first thought when I saw her packmates was also Elise, but I've already watched 5 or 6 videos about Naafiri and not a single one of them mentioned the spiderlings, lol. Maybe Elise has been so long out of meta that everyone forgot about her existence.
@@Homiloko2 It's probably just because her spiderlings don't do much in combat, but I found it weird, too.
Well, I mean, they do good damage. And Elise can command them: q to attack the enemy as a mini dash, e as a dash, w to increase their attack speed. And the damage of her spiderlings heals her.
@@soulglitcher its not a free spawn like naafiri passive with the cd. She needs o hit her abilities on something in human form to get the spiders in spider form. So elise can summon a lot compared to naafiri cus she can swap forms by the time naafiri gets like 2 dogs.
to be fair, elise doesnt need her spider at all. she does 90% of the damage while her spider oes like 10%
"2nd dog after Warwick"
Nasus: Am I a joke to you?
He said "Dog wolf"!
Nasus is just a dog.
@@thelostsoul9446Nasus is Jackal
Nasus is a god
Nasus is a good boy
Nasus is my daddy, UwU daddy Nasus, i been a bad boy 🤤🤤🤤
the whole time when he mentioned her passive, especially when he said "She'll be the first character that spawns interactive live minions" i was screaming at my screen "ELISE!!! WHAT ABOUT ELISE!!!" My poor spider gal is forgotten
I think that's her ultimate
@@0mnom519 But her ultimate almost without cooldown? she can easelly walk with spiders all the time.
@@grimreaper1843 it's her passive but she has to use her ultimate to activate it which a dumb passive if you ask me
@@0mnom519Man, it's like saying Jayce is ranged champion because he starts a game in cannon form.
Haven’t seen her in game in months
I believe recording these videos' voiceovers a lot of time before their release kind of hurts the quality sometimes. By now most people know she's a midlaner, by now a lot of people know her abilities and there is even footage you show of people playing her, so you end up making a lot of assumptions that don't make sense anymore. I absolutely love your content and want to se it get even better and more popular, and I believe that is a point of improvement
Then the video won't come out until a week or two after it's relevant because they can't start editing until the voiceover is finished.
@@soiscrs four videos have come out since Naafiri's announcement, and we got clarification on her specifics about two weeks ago, so there might be a priority issue.
Yeah, Vars was never a channel about accuracy. He just has a nice voice. If you watch these videos for genuine information, you're in trouble as he doesn't even take the time to proofread his scripts.
@@SurriSamadamn bro, making me want to unsubscribe just because of how bad vars seems
@@SaiKisaragi On the surface he's fine, he just gives super surface level insight and is more quantity over quality. He also holds some super strong biases from time to time due to being a toplane one trick.
7:14 actually, when Kled locks onto an enemy with ult, it functions the same way.
Does Azir dash also count?
@@jasonssqueakyass8286you don't target an enemy so I don't think so
@@soiscrs oh I thought he meant any dash that wast free aiming
@@jasonssqueakyass8286 Azir E is free aiming
But he can't control where he goes or after who
Unlike Naafiri
I hate her click on dash
I can confirm, her packmates can block pretty much anything a minion can, I would have to do some testing to see if they count as champs
Bard mains are up
I love the reception Naafiri got, in my opinion the monster champions are the most original and interesting designs and I really hope Riot realized there is a lot of people interested in these designs too, I understand humans and humanoids are more appealing to the mayority (China), and I'm ok about getting more human champions in general, but please Riot don't leave us for this long without a proper monster champion, at least one per year??😭😭
@@icedacreammaybe they should actually give monster champs accessible kits(Sol's playrate went from .5% to 3.8%, a 7x increase, because his design is awesome but his kit was inaccessible), not recatotagorize popular monster champs like Warwick and Khazix as not being monsters, and actually make good skins for them?
Look at Cho'gath's most recent skin and tell me that it didn't sell because he is a monster, and not because it looks terrible on his outdated rig(because it's awesome in the splash).
@the_last_ballad while it's true that monster champions usually have uncommon kits and that make them less unpopular and there are popular monster champions like Thresh, Aurelion Sold and Nautilus, it's also true that a sexy women with big tits and shirtless young men are more attractive than monster champions for horny bitches like most of China and Twitter users xD, still idc if they are more popular and sell more, i demand more original and amazing designs 😡
She got pass bc she is a dog like creature, like yumi, cats and dogs can target a huge chunk of audience, this is the only reason we got this champ
it's a dog, not a monster
Because it's technically a dog, but you're also not entirely wrong because he's "monster-ed" by darkin.
That moment when the void spawn is not a monster, but the dog is
I mean, it's a pretty aggressive dog tho
Void spawn has hooman face. Not real monster.
Khazix isn't considered a monster by Riot, and he's even less human.
@@VarsVerum Have you gotten a closer look of her face? It's not real, it's all for show, her face/head is a bait, just like an angler fish, if you remove her face (like her ult does) She has her real face in her chest, she's a true monster.
@@VarsVerum And Ornn is a bipedal brickwall of a person with the most monster-ish part being his Ram head. Bel'veth is a monster champ, because last I checked no human had a stingray body.
She's actually intended to he mid, Riot already said it
When i play her she reminds me a LOT to talon
Both have a neutral ability, can roam well, have an all in, is better as a assassin but can build a bit bruser, has a bleed that can prock for extra damage
She si really fun and doesnt feel broken
She is an assassin so people Will complain no matter what when she comes out but her design un general is simple, fun and fair
Fair always is relative and having such a long ranged targeted dash with burst damage ... that's pretty toxic for any champion that is not a bruiser/tank
She is just gimicky.
doesn't feel broken just tells me you didn't lane against her yet. All assassins had a modicum of skill and common sense required to deal that much burst dmg, not this one.
Irs kinda funny to hear that she's not broken. She was broken in all elos until a nerf or two. Then she was consistently nerfed cuz she was still broken af in low elo
Broken or not, you can pet her so 1000/10 Design.
And like half of the player base would fuck her so that’s easy money for riot
Imagine caring that you can pet the dog in a video game
@@xolotltolox7626 imagine not caring lol
@@xolotltolox7626 you emotionless robot
Sorry i don't soy out over meaningless garbage
I'm just happy they took the best design elements of Omen, the old cancelled Void champ and turboblasted them with amazing modern design sense
Naafiri is a very nice champ. Her abilities are easy to understand and easy to learn. Her entry skill level is very low, honestly the easiest assassin champ to get into, but her skill cap is much higher than expected due to her lower health and durability compared to all other darkin and even compared to other assassins. Her q will save her on occasion for sure, but if she fails to kill target with her combo, then her damage output drops drastically along with chance of her winning that fight. Ability haste and ad are her two favorite stats to get, as she needs her abilities back quick.
It is beyond stupid that the dagger is not shown in Naafiri's model. How much more awesome would it be if Naafiri was holding the dagger in her mouth?
i believe she is intended to be a mid laner at least thats what i thought i heard at some point recently
yeah riot said shes a mid laner Idk why he thought she was a jungler the next champ is supposed to be tho.
its a riot intent moment, where they want her to be a mid laner but the kit suits jungle very well. so will be similar to something like talon.
They did and I saw on their tik tok they confirmed this. Not saying she can't jungle but Imo Naafiri is a modern Talon.
@@BlackTheDog Viego was supposed to be jungle, people played him mid/top until they nerfed him 50 times, she might get played jungle, but if they really want her to stay mid they can do it
"I believe riot intends for her to be a jungler", nope riot has said she is supposed to be a midlane assasin
5:30 quick little thing, the champion spotlight tends to hint at what role the champ is supposed to be in! She is intended to be a midlaner, but i REALLY hope top and jungle will be options too
Lulu champion spotlight, says jungle, how many jungle lulu ur seen, same for others
@@mist1714 yeah but she's also 11 years old and riot has changed their approach several times since then
thematically, it seems like jungler would fit the most. if i were to design a wolf monster fighting with a pack, i would design them around the jungle. it makes sense for such a champ to roam the map and hunt opportunistically
I would really love to see you return to this champ now that we've seen her underperforming consistently for several patches. I have been maining her for a while and although I love her design and lore I feel like her abilities are fundamentally flawed because Riot keeps insisting that she's an Assassin but she has no escape tools other than just walking away, which makes her pretty useless in the mid to late game given how much burst damage we see at all tiers of play.
5:47 I love how you use the 'tear of the goddess' as Yorick's tear hahaha!
Although prone to change this is what I’ve gathered when playing her on pbe
- her ult only resets *once* and it’s on first kill, no infinite resets
- Yes, her dogs can bodyblock skill shots, the amount of naut hooks and morg ball that should have hit me but didn’t is hysterical
- She can perfectly build bruiser, although her damage drops off a cliff, it does help her sustain, so it’s a trade off depending on what you need
- I don’t think vars mentioned it but hitting with your abilities (and auto I think) on champions reduces the spawn cd of your passive, you land more hits then you spawn more up to a max of 2 dogs and 3 when you’re lvl 9 and higher
- her dogs are deceptively tanky, last I checked they can tank more than 1 auto and aoe abilities like morg w deals minimal dmg to them, most if not all single target skill shots one shot them tho like ez q
- *IMPORTANT* to pet the good girl you need to combo it, first do ctrl + 1 twice, then same thing for ctrl + 2 (twice) when the headpats are done, then ctrl + 3 (twice) when she’s on her back and then you can keep spamming ctrl 3 to cycle the belly rubs.
Gonna be honest before Naafiri the last time I was excited for a new champion was Rek'Sai based on design alone.
Can't wait to try her in the jungle.
7:14 Technically azir's dash is a non-free targeted dash that can be body blocked. He has to dash to a soldier and when he collides with a champion he stops and generates a soldier for w.
this champion is a visual clusterfuck, keeping track of what shes doing in a teamfight is probably gonna be real hard
edit: I really hope she is gonna be a kiting melee, Ive missed that playstyle since the evelyn rework (ty for that riot)
I believe that Varus wasn't entirely retconned to be a Darkin, it's just that they wanted to make more champs like him and so gave what he was a name retroactively
Really cool champ and I cannot wait to see the next Darkin, a support. Hope they can do something really cool with some sort of shield and give us something dreadful. 😁
I want Joraal 😭 I want my tragic shield boi
@@apexofchaos5864I want joraal too, I want to give him a hug specifically
What's going on with joraal?
@@bullettime1116 Joraal is a Darkin shield whose mind was particularly corrupted by the void because he was right on the front lines so he probably fought then for longer. He has essentially extreme PTSD and his lines sound absolutely desperate, unlike the others who seem angry or even content with their new situation, Joraal is absolutely terrified. There aren't many voice lines but I feel bad for him. Some of the lines are:
"Aatrox...? Where are you?!"
"I held the line! I HELD IT!"
"It waited in the dark... The void"
"It grows in me!"
@mori5481 and his weilder is a child so it makes it 100× times more sad
Only thing i think is 200 years is the w, specifically the lategame w, because with the heal and shield built into the kit, naafiri can sponge a lot more damage than most assassins, so that means that naafiri can engage from barely on screen and still probably kill an enemy squishy whether ahead or perfectly even. If the scaling range were lowered i think the champ is perfectly fine
1:00 Third dog* can’t forget nasus :)
Funny how both naafiri and warwick were also humans that got turned into wolves, Naafiri through her dagger being picked up by a wold, and warwick through singed's stuff.
Riot should definitely make more darken champs for the game but they should also make darken skins for existing champions. Personally I like the idea of a darken pantheon or sion
DARKIN. THEY ARE DARKING
Darkin skins would be a great way to add some of the LoR Darkin without overusing it for champions.
The Harp, Orb, Shield, and spear would be easy fits for Sona, Braum, and Xin Xiao(pantheon could work, but a spear and shield is his signature, while Xin only uses a spear)
7:14 I do believe that Azir’s E counts as a targeted dash by using his sand soldiers as the target. Granted, he can make new ones on the spot and reposition them easily, but it’s still technically a targeted dash that can be blocked.
Azir E isn't targetted in the slightest, because Sand Soldier are coded weirdly.
You just dash to the closest sand soldier to where you clicked to in range
And honestly they should just remove it stopping when you collide with a champion, originally that was the condition to get the shield, but nowadays it's just an annoyance that soemtimes just randomly kills you for no reason
@@xolotltolox7626 Didn’t it also have a bit of displacement on release like Gragas E? I also majorly agree that hitting someone with Azir E feel really bad as it makes him a sitting duck, so I think they could easily remove a ton of his elo skew by giving him the QoL feature of not getting fkd by someone unintentionally bodyblocking it.
either that or I just have to get good :P
@@kreeperkiller4423 they could also make it so sand soldiers are selectable for Azir you don't dash the wrong way, because the one you want to go to is slightly out of range
@@xolotltolox7626 It’s honestly way more rare for me to accidentally go to the wrong soldier than bump into someone and die for it. I treat the ability as one that I need to hover over the soldiers to use, so it nearly always goes to the right one.
Naafiri reminds me of Sett. Very simple yet feels great to play and only has one unique gimmick to her.
Except she doesn't get free damage from Auto attacks, gigantic true damage and up to 40 HP/s regen at lvl5
Oh and she uses mana
@@ethanstyant9704 bro is butthurt about sett's autoattacks lmao, also have u tried walking out of his true damage? it's pretty effective
@@AnonyMeowr you sound like the kind of person that calls Illaoi OP
@@AnonyMeowr some people never learn. they just burst down sett, eat his W then complain when they lose 3/4 of their health
@@ethanstyant9704 how lol, i literally said they are awful because their most powerful abilities can literally be walked out of, while nafiri point and click one shots you, no counterplay.
I feel like she was the first champion the community was excited for since ekko. I speak for myself there. I have been sooo eager to try her out and I haven’t felt that from a new champ in a while. Easily someone I’m gonna binge play
why the community? feel like people where also hyped about akshan and other champs before release
Fr ppl where hella hyped about Vex upon seeing her
I'm still confused why Naafiri is not classified as a Diver, because she definitely plays like one
No bulk, no CC, no backloaded damage. She has kill quick and get out. Why WOULD you think she's a diver?
@@dominicguye8058 Her get out of the jail free card is just one small dash on her E (and an R but it's similar to using Master Yi R or Aatrox R to escape, which is not always ideal), and most of the time it isn't going to be enough. Plus, her W screams diver.
She has backloaded damage in the form of wolves. If you run out of steam (e.g. burning your E) you can just statcheck with wolves and hope you can out-DPS them.
She has some form of sustain, which is shield on R (and slight heal on Q if it counts).
Yes, she has no hard CC but some divers can get away by having only one crowd control ability like Rek'Sai, Diana, Wukong, or Renekton (or even Rengar if he doesn't use empowered E) so I don't think it's a requirement as long as you can stick to your enemy and become annoying af.
At least she should be put in two categories, as both an assassin and a diver (like Rengar).
@@dominicguye8058"she has kill quick and get out" sounds very divey to me
I like how he keeps talking about how she is the first to passively spawn minions, but elise with her spiderlings exist that are very simailr to Naafiris wolves
8:02 killjoy :(
(Nice video btw! Loved this one)
It's impossible to play against her. That's for sure. You can't avoid her targeted dash. She will kill you in less than a second. If you flash over wall, she has second dash for absolutely no reason. They overtuned her damage, the mobs protect her from cc. There is no item in game like linken sphere, glimmer or blade mail to actually counter her. I am mad about her existence. I need to ban samira each game, because she is overpowered too, and now this mutt. It's so bad.
i like the overall design but the dogs blocking skillshots makes some matchups just unplayable.
its not like heimer where it takes skill, and not like yorick where you can find openings.
some matchups are simply unwinnable vs naafiri and i dont think that healthy. even if the champ isnt so op that the wr is broken.
its too polarizing.,
They said naafiri should be an easy champion and I can see it why. No ability here seems hard to use which is nice
I'm a warwick main so far, and now we get a second stat checking dog to be played in the jungle? How cool is that! I'll give her a try as soon as possible. Looks like I might become a dog main XD
Amazing video, I think her innate scaling gives her a kind of mage play style or assassin in terms of taking tp and gathering storm to safely scale to late game and take over, or ign dom tunes for early game pressure so I think the worry abt snowball reliance is relatively handled in that sense
Riot actually designed her to be a midlaner and perhaps be flexed into jg
Ornn is also not a monster champ. The last one we got (not counting Yuumi) is Sol back in 2016.
Is he though he's just a goat man.
Or a ram man.
1 interaction I love is Aatrox ult will scare all her packs, the darkin commander showing his absolute status
i dont think she is broken. alot of champs can interact with her dash and she has alot of bad match ups- comparing her to sett or aphilios on released she feels pretty balanced she feels like she barely needs any tweeks.
point and click (alomost) unawoidable dash from two screens away with like 2000 dmg instant bust on end of it screams balanced and counterplay.
You seem to have missed a lot of info about her since Riot admitted like the day she was announced she's intended as a midlaner not a junglers
When i saw the trailer I was hoping it would be meepo from DotA 2 . But it's just Elise with better spiders
Fun fact, with Naafiri we have a mid darkin, aatrox top, rhaast jungle and varus adc, now we need a support darkhin and we can have a full team!
For jungle on the PBE, as a Shyv one trick. She feels like she should be a diver, she doesn't have that many tools to escape outside of a small leap
To me, Bel'veth has been Riots admittance to still wanting to make more monster champions. What Riot did there was packaging a monster champion in a cutesy waifu-style shell, that's marketable for both chinese players and still kinda mosnter-esque and terrifying for western players.
+ I'm not exactly sure about that picture comparing "appealing visuals" between chinese and north american players? Asking players about "appealing visuals" could get lost in translation easily, so i'm not exaclty sure if these answers are even fully comparable. Yes, i know that comparison has been published by Riot themselves and Riot very likely understands the general preferences of us players, but mistakes, especially in statistical/ data analysis happen quickly and enjoy not being noticed. Maybe that affected that picture in some way and influenced a couple people in unintended ways...
I think this was a missed opportunity from Riot to introduce unit microing. Would be cool to also go back and add full control over other summons.
one thing ive noticed, is that people go electrocute and not conq on her. her packmates legitimately are broke with conq, since they help proc it, getting around 8 stacks off just one q
1:32 but Darkin were also retconned into being Darkin weren't they? I thought they were aliens originally before actually getting lore
The hardest combo you need to master is the timing when pressing her keys to pet her. I am not kidding.
She seems fine honestly
This was reslly well designed i like how it's not too complicated
0:58 cries in Nasus.
Nasus is technically a jackal, not a wolf
Bel veth is confirmed since pretty much here gameplay trailer as not a monster champ but as humanoid by reav3 ( lol champ lead designer) just happened to be pushed closer to monster
I would love to see them make Vladimir a darkin in the future, using the sustain base with the supposed orb darkin
You can pet the dog AND she doesn't have a wall of text for each of her abilities. I'd say she is already one of the best champs released in years!
Damn great video! Just watched it TWICE!
Heheh mad, are you?
nasus, warwick and now naafiri thats 3rf wolf/dog champion
The Part I don’t like, is that she doesn’t really interact with her dagger, except for her q. Aatrox and Va(a)rus really are about her Weapons. To be fair, Kayn/ Rhaast also only really use it for the Q. But otherwise she’s perfect.
I mean, Aatrox only use his Sword in one ability and is also his Q. If we think about it, Varus is the exception (which is fair because at first he wasn't a Darkin)
Thematically that makes sense, as she has effectively broken free of her prison, and her old identity, while Aatrox is still defined by his prison and Rhaast is still exactly as he was.
Wdym? Kayn/Rhaast uses the Scythe for all their damaging moves. Aatrox only uses the sword with his passive and Q.
I meant with Aatrox, that his Main source op dps is his Q. Kayn deals big parts of damage with his w or the passive first strike. And you don’t really deal the Weapon on his w
Oh i love that background music ❤❤ thank you
Sooooo... When "why no one plays naafiri"
dogshit champion
12:58 I love how the petting cursor is the Legacy one Riot wanted to remove.
Maybe the new cursor isn't as good as Riot tought? :D
they got the LoR team on the cinematic so its great reception is because of the team
Very good video despite the numerous times it felt like you forgot Elise exists
I am necessarily going to mention how much I (and it seems the comunity) love this approach: a monster champion, that's straight to the point, easy to play and up to newer product quality. I am so sorry but this is gonna be the best champ of the year, even if it starts out broken or weak as hell
So did we just completely forget that Elise exists?
She always has her spiderlings too, and it's not the most difficult thing in the world to spawn them just press W in human form
And they're basically the same thing, an assassin with high mobility who gets a damage buff based on their summons
I'm not saying they're exactly the same thing, of course, but there's such an obvious comparison there that we're just ignoring lol
I feel like they missed the mark with Nafiri, really had potential to be something different like a character who controls pets individually and have her whole kit revolve around that instead we get a cookie cutter kit, here have 2 dashes, move speed buff, shield and you're good to go.
darkin void crossover champion "Aas'chikz"
AS A SOUTH EASTERN PHILIPPINE HUMAN, I LOVE NAAFIRI SO MUCH
Filipino detected. Opinion discarded.
I rly think that her W is to easy of an gap closer. Even at low levels it has a big range, late game, it fells like it can treverse the entire enemy jungle. I would rly don't mind the distance of the skill, if it wasn't a point and click ability, I would rather have it as mini akali ult, you can go far, but you can miss
It's extremely telegraphed and late game you shouldn't be roaming alone in the jungle anyway if you are a squishy and there's an assassin in their team
*Me playing Nafiri with infinite packmates:* "Aww, these are the greatest bunch of uncountably infinite guys I've ever met." *uncountably infinite number of packmates rush down center*
5:30 She's made as a mid laner. Also, are we just forgetting about Elise spiders?
they are the same as yorick ghosts, it's lock to an ability.
there are only 2 issues i have with the champion. the first issue is that her ult SHOULD NOT give shielding, she is an ASSASSIN, a high risk high reward class. giving her shieldingt just completely removes any risk in her kit.
Second, he ult spawning 4 pack mates instantly. It removes one form of counterplay to the champion, being that if you focus on keeping her hounds down her damage should fall. but nope. riot continues to hand hold this class to no end by just letting her have 100% uptime at all times, rather than making the players think about it, so the dogs having health bars is just pointless. (note i have this same issue with yoric's maiden spawning 4 ghouls instantly.
I wonder if there will ever be a champ that has an ability that will expunge all debuffs from an enemy but the damage scales from debuffs removed.
Love your videos but the release of video before having any numbers has become a problem., Maybe a short preview or something before a proper video.
I'd rather wait a little bit, I really liked our videos but it's fallen off alot with this style
The weaker Vi ulti on W is a sore point for me. Seems like if you play adc the only way to outplay her is to depend on one of your solo queue teammates to block it for you. Then again, at least she won't have easy target access in team fights
well, her feast or famine playstyle is kinda poetic
Vars trying to figure out whether naafiri will play like a bruiser/diver or an assassin solely because of her packmates and ult is something surprising yet expected.
The kingdom hearts 2 battle music is exquisite
I now see that harp is assigned to Zunite miner, but my first thought was: weren't people who stole Sona's ethwal met with misfortune and instrument always returned? It almost seemed like it wanted to be with Sona.
I think there was a joke that Sona's etwal was a darkin, way back when the institute of war was a thing, for that exact reason.
having played her i have no issue with her. maybe some adjustments on damage but her wolves die very quickly and if your passive is on cooldown you lose a lot of burst. additionally she is on par with xed in the sense of you have to deal with her or she picks you off.
Fun fact: Naafiri got more rule 34 images in first two weeks since her reveal (not yet released) than Nilah, who was released a year ago.
I feel like a harp darkin would be really cool!
It does exist, its name is Styraatu, its in the card game
@@xabierarana2645 oh that's cool thanks for telling me
Okay you got me when you said you could pet her
She has the power and damage of zed, while being tankier because her dogs block skillshots and she has a huge shield (for some reason), while also being almost a point and click champion. Zed is powerful but nobody complains because he is hard. Naafiri is NOT hard. She will just have to be a permaban champion until riot does something. She just doesn't have to work at all for all that damage and that feels awful to play against, when you just know the counterplay is to just waste abilities on her dogs and not her, because if she has all her dogs up, she will one shot you at level 3 from full health.
Going by 'death by thousand cuts' playstyle, it gives me the vibe of win condition that Chun Li from SF has, many quick attacks n' neutrals, until she found an opening then go all in.
think this video ended up kinda... pointless. Because everything he said had the caveat of "im guessing, cuz it hasnt come out".
Id be interested in another nafiri video after its actually been out so he can see how it performs in reality and then talk about the design off that. But this vid... doesnt really provide anything that reading her abilities or lore page doesnt. Doesnt really show his design analysis expertise cuz its All speculation.
I think she looks cool and fun. Not exactly my cup of tea, but I enjoy 70% of the roster regardless of that already.
I Hope than Xolaani will be the sup darkin
Naafiri's delay on her dash might be a stun buffer like Urgot's
We have every role but support for darkin, as much as i wish xolaani was added, i hope its Xolaanis final form, aimilaf to kayle scaling up. If you dont act xolaanis final form then she would be pwrfect support (look up Legends of Runeterra for final form and its EPICNESS!)
She's a monster champ with monster like gameplay
Excited to watch this video while having lunch 🍽️
Naafiri dogs can tank Thresh hooks, which is extremely annoying, but canceling her dash with Flay is easy.
0:58
Nasus: "Am I a joke to you?"
Naafiri is unironically going to get me back into League. I WILL pet the puppy