Udyr Reperception

Making it so Udyr is an underpowered melee champion that grows stronger in combat, because who’s going to need the title of strongest melee duelist in the game?

The point? Making sure Udyr starts a fight very weak and will fail if he doesn’t make the correct decisions.

Figure if Nasus were to fill this niche from minute 0 to 2 hours, Udyr fills this role from fight 0 until his last fight, if he managed to get smarter till then.

Passive — Monkey’s Agility:

Udyr’s abilities grant him a Monkey’s Agility buff for max 5 seconds. Using abilities will gain certain bonuses to this buff until its duration ends. Adding a Stance refreshes its duration.

Udyr has no ultimate ability but uses 4 basic attack empowered abilities that each have their own unique passive. You can only use one unique passive depending on which Stance you are focused on. When Udyr uses an ability he adds a Stance effect to Monkey’s Agility, replacing the previous Stance effect. Before Monkey’s Agility buff ends, he can upgrade any ability up to 3 times. After reaching a 3rd upgrade on any ability, Udyr can no longer upgrade, until the current Monkey’s Agility buff is gone.

When Udyr adds a Stance, its current active will carry over upon using the next Stance.

Q0 — Tiger Stance:

Stance: Udyr’s next basic attack when adding a Tiger Stance has 2 additional tiger faces that reach out to two nearby enemy champions, copying Tiger Stance’s active damage on the current target, once to each of them.

Active: Next basic attack, apply all unactivated Tiger Stance passive damage, then each enemy without a DoT gets applied one after.

Passive: Udyr and Spirits attack, dealing bonus physical damage over 2 seconds to an enemy. Basic attacking them refreshes this passive.

Q1— Tiger Stance:
Gain +20% Attack Speed
One use when adding Tiger Stance 1: Monkey’s Agility: Next ability has its basic attack timer reset by -60%.

Q2 — Tiger Stance:
Gain +35% Attack Speed (+55%)
One use when adding Tiger Stance 2: Monkey’s Agility: Next 2 abilities have its basic attack timer reset by -60%

Q3 — Tiger Stance:
Gain +70% Attack Speed (+125%)
One use when adding Tiger Stance 3: Monkey’s Agility: Next 3 abilities have its basic attack timer reset by -60%.

W0 — Turtle Stance:

Stance: Against champions; Udyr’s next basic attack when adding a Turtle Stance grants him 50% damage reduction to his currently equipped shield. Does not apply to the next shield.

Active: Gain a shield for 5 seconds.

Passive: Heal from basic attacks based on missing health every 3rd attack.

W1 — Turtle Stance:
Gain +5% Armor/Magic penetration
One use when adding Turtle Stance 1: Stance: Grants +15% extra damage reduction. (65% damage reduction)

W2 — Turtle Stance:
Gain +5% Armor/Magic penetration (+10%)
One use when adding Turtle Stance 2: Stance: Grants +15% extra damage reduction. (80% damage reduction)

W3 — Turtle Stance:
Gain +5% Armor/Magic Penetration (+15%)
One use when adding Turtle Stance 3: Stance: Grants +15% extra damage reduction. (95% damage reduction)

E0 — Bear Stance:

Stance: Bear will fight any animal spirit; when adding a Bear Stance, Udyr’s next basic attack against a champion has a bear stun any enemy consequently effected by an animal spirit. Additionally the enemy champion that acts as a vessel for this bear is stunned. Has no limited range, only Tiger’s and Phoenix’s are harmed.

Active: Udyr gains bonus Move Speed and ignores unit collision, additionally his next basic attack gains 50 bonus range. Active lasts for few seconds.

Passive: Udyr’s basic attacks are unstoppable and they stun for 1 second. They cannot stun the same target more than once every 5 seconds. Stun is additive to Stance.

E1 — Bear Stance:
Gain 10 bonus Move Speed
One use when adding Bear Stance 1: Active: Grants +50 extra range. (100 max range)

E2 — Bear Stance:
Gain 10 bonus Move Speed (+20)
One use when adding Bear Stance 2: Active: Grants +50 extra range. (150 max range)

E3 — Bear Stance:
Gain 10 bonus Move Speed (+30)
One use when adding Bear Stance 3: Active: Grants +50 extra range. (200 max range)

R0 — Phoenix Stance:

Stance: Udyr’s next basic attack when adding a Phoenix Stance creates a thousand year phoenix to attach to his target enemy champion. That enemy gains all of your bonus resistances besides items only when basic attacking you. An enemy can only have one phoenix attached to them.

Thousand Year: Emits large pulses of fire to him and his nearby allies and all other neutral creatures; does not stack with other thousand years’, but does so with Phoenix Stance passive. Pulses stop if the enemy is not basic attacking Udyr, then phoenix will shoot fireballs at the attached enemy, eating away at their health in bursts, as a means to quench it. The phoenix can not disappear if the enemy constantly switches between basic attacking Udyr or not, inevitably killing them. Thousand years last for 4 seconds. A max of 3 thousand years can exist at any given time.

Passive: Udyr pulses small waves of fire around him.

R1 — Phoenix Stance:
Gain +10% bonus Armor/Magic resistances.
One use when adding Phoenix Stance 1: Active: Next basic attack, a very large cone of fire hits in targets direction effecting all enemies.

R2 — Phoenix Stance:
Gain +10% bonus Armor/Magic resistances. (+20%)
One use when adding Phoenix Stance 2: Active: Next basic attack: A second much larger cone. (+50% damage increase)

R3 — Phoenix Stance:
Gain +10% bonus Armor/Magic resistances. (+30%)
One use when adding Phoenix Stance 3: Active: Next basic attack: A final finitely large blast. (+100% total damage increase)

I will be going over what each of these images represent slowly below. What you are seeing above is an in-game visual representation of what the player sees when he wants to upgrade his abilities, he does this simply through using his abilities normally.

As shown, starting the passive Monkey’s Agility buff with 1 ability. That ability also remains at stance 0 after being used. You can imagine this as pressing a Stance once to confirm the upgrade path. Therefore it takes 4 key presses to reach a final upgrade, AKA Stance/Q3.

When every Stance is at 0, Monkey’s Agility has no value to you, other than telling you a timer for when it is going to reset this whole process. Which again would end up looking like the image showing what happens at the start of this process.

Currently Monkey’s Agility still has no value, because Udyr is taking a longer approach to pressing all of his abilities one by one each time. This is a characteristic of greed for wanting to gain the most value out of Monkey’s Agility for as long as possible. This is also noted for being necessary to gank or surprise an opponent with the leg up on them, as I mentioned previously, Udyr is supposed to start very weak at Stance 0. This is at the cost of mana, so I can see Udyr being repertoired for late game.

Here I’ve skipped a Stance. To show an additional feature in keeping track of your upgrades, as well as how actives can carry over to the next Stance. If you were to hover over Monkey’s Agility, it would say you have +10 Move Speed, given from the Bear Stance sitting at Bear Stance 1/E1.

A few Stances later: Just as a note, the Monkey’s Agility buff does not clarify what it means when “Udyr uses an ability he adds a Stance effect to Monkey’s Agility, replacing the previous Stance effect.” As I figure that is excessive information at a point. What it means is the buff is an easy, if need be, way to track what you gain from using your abilities, until it is locked from any more bonuses.

And finally for clarity, when you reach the 3rd and final upgrade of any Stance, all these images go away, and you can no longer upgrade anything on any path, and you’re locked in with what stats are said under Monkey’s Agility, all lasting until the buff is gone. When it is gone, you can start this process all over again.

14 Images GIF

When hovering over a still upgrade with your mouse it should show the full brief description of what powerful effects you are rewarded with for pressing an ability X amount of times. (1+X if you are using the digit counter as a visual guide).

• Instead of having the old Udyr passive that no one, even the players thought about truthfully; we add a thinking scheme — with each ability having powerful passive effects to reach for, and in fact act perpetually when not losing this passive.
• I think with all the additional effects, it’s to show that Udyr gains the most out of it pressing all buttons evenly, but most fights don’t last for so long, and Udyr would presumably always hit the cap early.
• Why I think this will work so well: Instead of getting a mono effect out of pressing a button, you become more harmonious with your champion and can feel but not only, see the powerful Stances leave Udyr’s palm when you auto attack someone; after pressing that button.
• From what I can see, when I was imagining playing this version of Udyr, I wasn’t thinking about the additional bonuses you get from Stance upgrades. This is just another layer of depth to him.
• There wasn’t any mechanics in fact disappearing from Monkey’s Agility, as you’ll see has been added back later into abilities upgrades, but that it has serious upkeep and mastery involved.

• If a champion is attacked by a tiger that deals no damage, they will still be applied the DoT specified.
• Each of those tags are going to flare up, if you reach a max, you can not upgrade any other ability.
• When carrying over this active to a new Stance, like Bear Stance, it will stun a target for 2 seconds. 1, the champion gets attached with a Tiger Spirit that is clawing at them for 2 seconds; 2, they are getting attacked by a Tiger Spirit under Bear Stance as the ability says each enemy without a DoT gets applied one.
• Nerfed the damage, under current Udyr it’s supposed to apply its damage initially and every 3rd attack. But with this it is permanence.
• Attack Speed is construed in a way that has removed Attack Speed from the old Monkey’s Agility stacks, and that speed is only found when playing with Tiger Stance. However it looks like you can unlock max Attack Speed at any level.
• Still not changed to deal with tanks really, by any % health means.
• Tiger Stance is the one of two playstyles, the other being Phoenix Stance. With Tiger Stance, it is emphasizing its speed, auto attacks, dueling, melee duels, high DPS over a longer time period compared to Phoenix, and it’s for attack damage.
• There are many metaphors with Tiger Stance, and I can think of a few. It has weak jungle clear but strong takedowns on things like neutral objectives. There is not a lot of thinking to do when using an auto attack enhancer. It’s for longer duels, fights, or skirmishes, it is mainly the DPS ability, but not the only one. He is supposed to play like a different champion, attack fast with damage from auto attacks, or to replace someone’s role like Master Yi, Jax. Those I hope are familiar nuances kept with the change.
• He is meant to 1v3 with this ability, but not create an unbalanced 1v1 if that were to occur. The playstyle is to simultaneously take down extra grunts ganging up on you. It is also to perform well under melee matchups or heavily sided melee comps. That contrasts with Phoenix for having a better presence in team fights. But not the only option, they are both good for what you want to do.
• Tiger Stance should probably be used if you won’t be kited, and can easily stick to the enemy. Or you can create value out of the Stance effect.
• I hope this shows the theme of weak upon first contact, but gets very strong. If Udyr had the attack speed from earlier, the active damage still will do 0 burst damage upon first contact. And also the passive can not last longer than a 2 seconds.
• There is no instant burst that the active is not instantly applying the unapplied passive damage.

• Uses armor and magic penetration, as regardless both Tiger Stance and Phoenix Stance players want either both penetration or resistances. But it’s risky to include resistances to be easily obtained by a fighter playstyle like Tiger Stance, at no cost of itemizing for additional resistances. That’s why it’s better for the AD fighter to have to go out of his way of what he wants to already do to obtain those resistances.
• The point still stands Udyr has to be weak at first when pressing this ability, and he gets that weakness having to land a basic attack to get the damage reduction.
• Between Turtle Stance and Bear Stance, these are the key moba abilities. What make him competitive in the grand scheme, he is outclassed by other champions reliable damage, if not the need for where his power lies. Here it is what helps him compete fairly.

• Udyr can stun champions for up to 2 seconds. A special case is Udyr can stun monsters for that additional second if only affected by Tiger Stance spirit and if he manages to attack a champion quickly when switching to Bear Stance.
• Currently there is no range limit in mind for how far this Bear Spirit can go.
• The first basic attack against a champion stuns, and if that champion was recently targeted by a Tiger (within 2 seconds), or a Phoenix, they are added with another stun on top of another.
• Like Tiger Stance, the old Monkey’s Agility stacks were moved to here, the most commonly shared Udyr ability.
• Spirit battles are going on above our heads, Udyr is a vessel for the tamed power of Ionian animal spirits. Born in the Freljords but a student from Ionia. These spirits are floating gestures of graphics fighting each other.
• Bear Stance really created this ebb of Udyr entering spirits into the world through his fists, basically attaching these spirits to enemies as attached, for lack of a better world, spirits.

• The cone moving to an active is now mainly a burst ability, one important fact to take into account: Previously Stances were considered for being attack 3 times, well with this change, I hope it cements the reasoning behind what playstyle, whether Tiger Stance or Phoenix Stance a player chooses. So that there is no blurred lines between the two and choosing whichever is more overpowered.
• Like Tiger Stance, this is the only second Stance that can set up an additional stun for Bear Stance.
• The buffer between thousand year pulses and chipping away at the attached enemy will probably use a 1 second grace period.
• As for why the Phoenix requires resistances, look no further then Anivia.
• Phoenix Stance is for strictly ability power playstyles; Mages, AP bruisers, in and out gameplay, team fight oriented, or even split pushing, but with a weaker tower take down compared to tiger, but also like tiger it has an interesting mechanic pertained to duels, it’s designed to make you weaker in a 1v1. It is also somewhat beneficial to Udyr for the bonus resistances. And I find that mostly due to how an AD fighter champ can easily include heavy resistance items into his build, but with an AP champ, it is always a stretch both ways.
• This weaker 1v1 mechanic is thematic for a few ways. Udyr is a champion of respect, when he gets weaker in a 1v1, it’s not that Udyr is submissive, but he is giving that buff to the enemy because he feels like he has an unfair advantage. For Udyr’s conscious, he wants to know the enemy is given a fair battle, but this is ironic because he doesn’t know the underlying detrimental effects caused by the Phoenix Spirit. Also, the fight is for a battle against epics, these spirits are not in this world, and couldn’t care less about any other’s feelings besides their own survival, in a way it is their animal instinct.
• Thousand year phoenix: The most bubbly personality of all the other animal spirits, she is a needy beast; leeches onto the opponent; and whips them for her own amusement. The phoenix has a lust for battle, does not care about how weak the enemy champion she is attached to is, and if that champion is too weak for her, she will start eating away at their health to find Udyr again. The phoenix has a desire to outperform Udyr because she has done so for thousands of years, and enjoys if there were another playmate she can attach to and sort of have this competitive spirit.
• Phoenix Stance has more to do with gaining the Armor/MR penetration from Turtle Stance, and she is a good combination with the two for an AP bruiser playstyle that is different from the highly agile/reckless playstyle of Tiger Stance.
• Udyr is this martial artist, but another spiritual fight is happened with these animal spirits, they have an instinct for it.

Would Udyr be an MMO Champion

The question comes from pressing your abilities repeatedly off cooldown. From what I can tell, Udyr is more closely related to an MMO character than a normal moba character. Notable with his lack of ultimate ability, and less commonly that type of playstyle. Which you’d have to engage on a champion obliviously, and keep track of the battle mentally rather than widely the physical abilities, and let’s just assume they always have an easy way to hit, both you against them, and them against you. That way you always know your limits, and you also know what is always the end goal, similarly with MMOs, acquiring their end gear. To be better equipped than your opponent, so that you can win with time and not particularly skill. Not to say there is no skill involved, but Udyr is a champion of strongly enforced combat queues and planning and mental fortitude and the whole sense of freedom that comes with the particular champion.

Udyr Can Not Use Tenacity

Tenacity shouldn’t exist in his kit, and making him ignore all damage but get hit by CC is really important, because on the latter you are rewarding a noob or bad Udyr player’s to play like a monkey and not care about anything, and what does that say about the best players who mastered Udyr?

Saying this is removing anything to deal with Udyr’s mastery, or champion identity: I think Udyr should have less consequences to CC because he is all melee; all basic abilities. That is what a player who does not want to play the game means. Because his champion was originally meant to be unfair to him, he equally needs opportunity to reach his enemies. But while his champion is unfair to him depending on matchups, he also not only wants himself to consequently think less, but his opponent to think less as well. And with added tenacity, the Udyr only needs to play to the strengths his champion has given him. And that is to run at any enemy every chance he gets. Just that, in a straight line, this of course is the binary complexity we want to avoid.

I wouldn’t hold you accountable if you did pick Udyr into every matchup. It is not something worth preventing, you are the master of your own two feet. So pick your targets carefully, and play to the situations of the game. Udyr is not a bad champion because he can’t reach anyone, he is just weaker. Udyr is not something that can be so one dimensional, and that he is additionally granted a strength for not only the low skill management, but you want to give him even a layer of depth less to think about in the player vs player matchup. While there is a current lack of complexity in Udyr’s basic kit, he has to adapt to the situation every time to account for this, he has to know how every fight will play out, and whether his use is with or without his team. Udyr can be known for this, how he is a gliding fighting character that once he gets to you, he locks both players in a cutscene and starts playing some fighting game altogether, but; how useless the player’s choices are when all he has to do is pick the first fight he sees and can run away whenever he feels like it, he needs to be accountable for those choices, not rewarded with whatever he must decide that is made easier for him.

Udyr is dependent entirely on his gold income relative to how other champions are matched in his gold.

I encourage you to pick Udyr in the custom games where they always supply a constant stream of gold, and realize you can now easily run into enemies every time you want to engage, and how those enemies are given the same chance at succeeding as you. Udyr’s misfit on the classic Summoners Rift game, he needs gold. The few games Udyr can sustain a level amount of gold, he will become an issue, or just be worth it. This can easily be seen in the games where he is visibly ahead, visibly cocky/etc. The amount of gold Udyr needs to make needs to both supply durability, and damage, and even then, it’s very hard to ever build a Triforce, or itemize against, crits, Thornmail, Frozen Heart, or Spirit Visage.

There is the usual dilemma both teams have; will the ones with all the gold lose steam, or will the ones with a lack of gold hold against time. If I were playing Udyr, I’d feel busy across the map all the time. Well I guess that’s the consequence of playing in the jungle. You’re asking for Udyr to rev up and perform at his threshold for the entire course of the game, and anytime that he does lose steam, he is caught up by those that can take advantage of the situation better every time. Is that risk/reward worth taking up the spot in champion select? The answer to this can help us understand how we can ensure Udyr has a better future.

If having a champion behind the course of the game wasn’t bad enough, how tedious is it to have a champion to have no recourse in the game, when his threshold to perform is much higher than his guaranteed stake in the game? An easy idea is to cover the abilities called ‘moba’, in-between what abilities Udyr has that allow him to be a champion, or fun, or palatable. His W, and E are what allow him to have a balanced integrous competitivity existing in any given game, because when all champions, and they must, perform behind, they at least need some guarantee to act in game that is best for their team, and ensure some form of comeback, otherwise they encourage all quitting. In-between his make-fun abilities, which are the Q and R both for damage, when a champion has no damage, they can be used for their utility or tankiness, but when a champion deals no damage or has no utility, when they in fact can be tanky, there is no use for this champion to exist.

Udyr has a crude way to act in game, that is more than feast or famine. He is asked to perform at his best or more than what is asked for by his team’s limits; he must acquire enough gold to equally match or outperform his opponents, and he must not fall behind, otherwise who would be one to pick such a champion again. And it’s not that Udyr can limit himself, or dare expose his weakness at any moment. But he needs to have a long stressful job in game to accomplish his goals, and do more than be laid back and let your champion come online after any moment, but Udyr has to make up with never having another chance to come online again, when there are no second chances. If we want a champion to not curse themselves the moment they screw up in the early game, and not act oppressive if they’ve achieved that, what must be some ways to make this champion work without gold, so he can have a vice in his team, and make the game truly what allows both sides to play until defeat.

Udyr Does Not Need a Visual Update

It goes without saying you wouldn’t want to touch an artifact, much less alter the fabric which constitutes its rarity. And that there are already 3 kits to be in constant awareness of; the old kit, the current kit, and any future kits. Why that is important to keep track of; is the known need for the player; without the player there is no cost benefit besides in keeping him; and without the player there is no need be to even use more resources in keeping what is already not there. That is even more hard to keep track of because not only does the player want to have comfort in the game he plays, he simultaneously encourages change, and he also acts like a fool sometimes in this contradictory nature. And so without something rational to keep track of, you are only left with the current game state in which you are happy with.

This is more unbeknownst to me, because I haven’t even the faintest clue what could change the game under any change I make. Therefore the game could constantly be in a state I am happy with or unhappy with, and any change becomes irrelevant to the first. And that is where you begin to worry what game even reminisced closer to the first in which we were all happy… But the happiness of the player is which of why we are all here and do the things we do. Yet we constantly belittle him, we hold him in dear languish from some unknown reason, whether we valued another player over him, or disregarded him entirely. And that is why must not forget the first point; his comfort; his second familiarity, the game; and the third point, cost analysis. That is also where we begin to subside not only is there a cost to all of this, but a cost to keep the players which gets to decide all of the above.

And so to begin with, you remove a scope of familiarity and comfort every time you move on from the game. That is where the player is logging on to, for many reasons, but for one he is all familiar with; the bonds; the experiences, the lack of similarity, in gameplay. It is also where you keep a brunt of the player experience, everything which is old stays there, without it and everything removed, you are left with empty air, and every game feels like a push in a direction you are not even sure where it’s going. So you figure, what might be the point, why do we play this game which we do not have any comfort or disorient to. A better question yet is, why change what has already existed for many years, which holds no problem to existing, but a needed change for someone else’s story, and we completely forget that story belonged to the player, and why is it he is removed from that story and is forced to change into someone else’s pants?

We could look into what is the problem at the central problem, and the game state. Currently there had been no problem with Udyr existing in his current state, you release him new skins, you create new champions which give the player a new set of pants to try on. All that included in the game of which the player knows, and better, wants to pay for. But for now we are changing Udyr because he is a ‘lack of competitiveness’ and has a few models that look like dirt. But the problem doesn’t stop there, but it is that other Udyr’s, and other players want him changed. All at the whim on someone else’s content. But why is it that we ask for those changes? Is it because we lack comfort, or we know better for the game when I myself wouldn’t know what could happen if we did change it. All we could know, is where we are going with it. And why do we want to make its change for the better, despite its clarity upon influencing the player.

And so, there is no better cost based analysis than that that has to do with retaining a player. Much better if you could buy new players. To do this, with all steps involved, you would have to forget what made a player comfortable, convince him that change is better for the current state of the game, and leave options for him in the future he has something else to look forward to similarly. But this is all nonsense but a train ride through a never ending tunnel, and you would all call a man crazy for suggesting you walk the whole way back the longer you travel, when everyone secretly knows there is no end and yet you still hope; and how easy would it be to cut off those loose ties on suggesting what was deemed a failure but replace him with new beneficiaries to the change, how easy would he be to be cut more than the last because there is no history tied to him? We lose a sense of purpose in never needing failures, that of was never asked for or made within the interests of the player. That of which I see no purpose in removing an old state of Udyr, rather than releasing smart content for him.

And that is why I am one to suggest we do not need to give Udyr a ‘Visual Update’. Because he still reminds you how simple it is, to stop playing one of those newer released characters and still rejoice in what once was. Because the player still needs to keep a familiarity to the game he plays. The player’s purpose is more important than anything, because he is not tied to the game, he isn’t being forced to log back in, it would be a shame to remove what once did. You’re not going to be keeping the same players forever, and if you did, you’d manage to have something he’d look forward to playing when he does in the future.

P.S

Through my own playtesting, the only negative I could see, is having to think about your passive at all times. As for the rest has remained unchanged, and can even be more flashy.

In a secondary point of view, one could issue the fact behind wasting 1 point and freedom to level up the 4th ability to maintain Monkey’s Agility for as long as possible. I could also say that, this is an issue of a player playing in the now, and does not think about the future consequences. When a player is experienced he might even stick to all 3 abilities at scale because he knows at full cooldown reduction, the 4th ability is redundant, and even sometimes useless in player’s chosen playstyle.

And finally, one final mistake is in believing that a Phoenix Stance player might want the 1 point in Tiger Stance, but vice-versa Phoenix Stance is useless if you are not AP. Because Tiger Stance grants a valuable Monkey’s Agility buff where it lowers the load-up time of auto attacking, essentially as an auto attack reset buff. The mistake is in believing Phoenix Stance wants to stick around and auto his opponent all the time. But I believe there are some cases where Tiger Stance and Phoenix Stance can love one another enough to pave way for a hybrid playstyle where this is the case.

P.P.S

Before, I’ve always used the idea that nothing is free; if you were to give a champion bonus armor in an ability, I assumed that was at the cost of their base stats. Now after review, I’ve realized that every champion is balanced against each other with base stats; and when gaining any bonus armor from an ability, that too is balanced against what other buffs champions receive. Knowing this now, we can start to see how the game makes each champion powerful to each their own.