New Hero Moakai abilities!

 

Moakai, The Twisted Treant
Ranged Support / Release Date: February 15

Story:

"It was a normal day on Twisted Treeline, with champions battling each other in the forest paths until a powerful arcane spell missed its intended target and crashed into random tree. The energies of the spell animated the tree, and Moakai was born. And he was pissed. Tormented by his newfound consciousness and pulsing with volatile magic, Moakai’s looking to take out his frustration by smashing some enemy champions with his massive tree-trunk arm."

Role:

Moakai was designed to be a ranged initiator/support champion. The devs expect him to excel when paired up with a champion who can make up for his lack of sustained DPS, much like Taric and Janna rely on a good lane partner. His ultimate is sure to come in handy during teamfights, as area-of-effect (AoE) spells are critical in the late game.

Abilities:

Q: Moakai’s arms resemble Hellboy’s: one average sized, one large enough to knock out an elephant. Moakai’s Q makes him slam his trunk-arm into the ground, sending a shockwave rippling through the earth towards the enemy. The shockwave acts as a line nuke, similar to Ezreal’s Essence Flux (W) ability. Originally, the wave resembled Kassadin’s Force Pulse (E) and granted Moakai bonus armor, but the result was a messy spell that just didn’t fit.

W: His bread-and-butter initiating move. Moakai explodes into a multitude of arcane splinters, phasing out of existence for a brief moment in order to reform at the feet of an enemy champon, growing out of the ground underneath them to damage and root them in place for a few seconds. This ability is single-target (imagine if Master Yi’s Alpha Strike (Q) stunned a champion instead of jumping between enemies) and is not channeled, as Moakai ceases to exist during the spell, similar to Alpha Strike.

E: Like the Vulture’s spider mines from Starcraft. Moakai plants an acorn into the ground, which lies in wait for a unfriendly passerby. Once it’s found a target, the acorn will pop out of the ground and run to the enemy champion, exploding for light AoE damage when it gets there. This is great for traps, keeping an eye on enemy movements in the jungle and useful in team fights due to its small AoE damage. It can also be used as a scouting tool, similar to Teemo’s Noxious Trap (R), but Moakai will be much more limited in the number that he can place.

R (ultimate): Moakai’s ultimate ability fits right into the current meta-game, where teamfights often decide who wins or loses a match. Think of it as the defensive version of Anivia’s Ultimate. Moakai creates a placeable AoE that drains mana per second while active. Allied champions standing in the area will receive more and more Magic Resist as the spell absorbs damage. It can be maintained as long as Moakai has enough mana, but it’s costly, so we never had it on for more than 6 or so seconds. When the ability is toggled off, Moakai’s cooldowns will be reduced according to how much damage was absorbed during the spell. If you soak up enough spell damage, you can reach a threshold that will, in essence, allow you to double-cast your other abilities as magic flows back into Moakai.

Passive: Moakai’s passive gives him some decent staying power early on in the laning phase, when champions are casting spells to ensure last-hits and harassment. He gains increased health regeneration when champions near him (enemy or ally) cast spells.