Will we have to relearn Lee Sin combos, or the hate for Teemo?
LoL ASU: Lee Sin and Teemo Early Concepts and Release Date Revealed
Earlier this year, Riot Games have announced that they are going to follow up their ASU practice from last year. After giving us the new looks of two female champions, now it's time for two male champions to get a makeover.
As per their plans, we can expect the new Lee Sin and Teemo to arrive on Summoner's Rift during the first and second half of 2024 respectively. But, what are the early design concepts for their updates exactly?
Lee Sin ASU - Modernizing the Monk
In League of Legends, ASU stands for Art and Sustainability Update. And in Riot's own clever alliteration, we can expect them to focus on "modernizing the monk" in all of his aspects.
- Gameplay feel
- Gameplay read
- Character resonance
The first order of business is diversifying Lee Sin's champion silhouette. The current one, Riot explain, can be easily confused with other humanoid champions that have no special discernible characteristics and a projectile Q ability, such as Ezreal.
One of the ways to accomplish this is to add Lee Sin’s ponytail into his base design to help distinguish him from the others, with his braid hanging freely, instead of being coiled around his neck.
Unlike a VGU, an ASU has a goal to modernize a champion while keeping to their original base design as much as possible. Thus, his muscular but lean build will stay, while his clothes will resemble those in Wild RIft, with a few additional layers.
Now, when it comes to gameplay, Lee Sin has always been an issue when it comes to his hitboxes. By "rigging" the champion with additional joints, the new Lee Sin should have more natural animations, comparable to actual real life martial arts.
And finally, and most importantly, the most defining characteristic of Lee Sin is his flashy gameplay. Riot are quite aware of this and while their focus is to make his floaty gameplay look more natural, still let the players who have invested hours upon hours into perfecting their combos make the transition from the old to the new Lee Sin smoothly.
- Make sure you can execute the best Lee Sin combos with a Logitech G Pro LoL Edition Mechanical Keyboard
Teemo ASU - A New Face to Hate
While Riot refer to Teemo's upcoming update as a face we will fear, we all know that we hate the small top-lane rat more than fear him. So, what is in store for Teemo in 2024, exactly?
- Scaling Teemo to current Yordle standards
- Making his face visible and more expressive
- Updating his animation kit
Compared to Lee Sin, Teemo's ASU can, at a surface level, be considered as updating him to an HD model, but that is definitely not the case. The changes will be subtle at first glance, but will accumulate into a distinctive champion feel.
The first order of business will be lengthening Teemo's limbs to scale him with other Yordle champions, which will allow him a wider range of motion, and a distinctive silhouette and personality, compared to the stubby one he has now.
Furthermore, currently, his face is not visible most of the time, and it doesn't move in any of his animations. That is something Riot are giving a lot of attention to so that even the Yordle Scout can be adorable. It's not like he has that much lore to say that he is always dour.
And finally, his animations. Compared to other Yordles, Teemo lacks the bouncy and magical elements the rest of his brethren have, which is inherent to Yordles as a race. So, Riot intend to adjust him to fit the Yordle characteristic more, while not causing any overlap with any of the existing Yordle champions.
Seeing as they intend to do this in all of his animations, in every situation and with every Teemo skin, we can definitely see why i will take until the second half of 2024 for this ASU to be ready for release.