League of Legends: Reworks announced, what can we expect?

In the world of League of Legends, we are introduced to new champions, items and new game mechanics. Therefore, not all champions manages to maintain their performance and end up being forgotten.

It is intending to offer a second chance to these champions that Riot organizes a reworks schedule. Recently, it was announced that the next ones will be for Skarner, a mysterious champion from the Arcane series and Shivana, but what can we expect from that?

Initially, we have to understand what the different types of reworks are and how they are applied on a case-by-case basis.

The first type of Rework is the Visual and Texture Update with the function of adapting the champion to the game's new art standards. This was the case with Jax, who had his model, story, skins and animations updated to better fit with the current version of League of Legends. Below, we can see the difference between an updated champion 12 years after its release.

Next Visual Reworks

Visual updates for Teemo, Lee Sin and Talon are already being produced and should be released in the game soon!

The second type is the Gameplay Reworks, which is for recent champions with models, skins and animations that match the look of the game that, for some reason, did not adapt well or simply failed to captivate players. This was the case with Rell and Ivern, who had part of their abilities modified.

Rell is a case of support with a slower play style, she was often chosen in the competitive scene, but few people liked to play with her. Therefore, she received a small overhaul of her skills kit to make her more dynamic and agile.

The champion gained a stun in her first ability and had her third ability replaced by a large increase in movement speed, followed by additional damage in her next basic attack or 'Q'.

Ivern received an upgrade to become more independent in matches. His ultimate ability has gained damage and movement speed, his rooting from his first ability has become more consistent, his shield is reapplied if it does not deal damage to enemy champions and the damage bonus from his bushes also applies to his allies, but in a smaller amount.

In the Visual and Gameplay update, a champion is completely reworked and only some principles and identities of its old version remain.

It is the most drastic type of rework and the one that most separates players' opinions, as there is always a group loyal to that character who have put hundreds of hours into learning and refining their play style.

Taric

Taric was a champion released at the start of League of Legends, in August 2009. He received constant complaints from players due to his antiquated model and a detail known as “pizza feet” due to its triangular shape with few polygons. Currently, no champion in League of Legends suffers this criticism, all old champions have received some type of visual rework.

Furthermore, Taric's playing style was very simple and passive, with few offensive skills and precision shots in his kit. His strategy was to link up with the allied sniper and provide healing, armor, and damage, eventually stunning an enemy that tried to take down his sniper.

As he is an old champion so he didn't have a presentation video, but his gameplay was immortalized on social media.

The essence of the old Taric was maintained, but his update brought a much more beautiful model and a complete overhaul of his ultimate ability.

Taric's passive now grants attack speed and additional damage proportional to his armor for his next two attacks, after using a skill and each attack made with the passive, he recovers a healing charge.

The first ability continues to focus on healing, but now in an area around Taric consuming all charges to increase the amount recovered up to a maximum of 5 charges.

His second ability continues to link him to an ally, but now grants a shield and repeats all abilities cast by Taric on his ally.

His third ability remains a stun, but is now an area precision shot.

The ultimate has been completely reworked. Upon activating the ability, Taric creates a large area around himself, which activates and provides invulnerability to all allies within the area for 2.5 seconds.

Sion

Sion was a champion released at the game's beginning and caused some confusion, and could be played by making ability power items or attack damage.

He had a passive that negated instances of damage, a single-target stun, and a shield that exploded. If Sion made ability power items, these two would already be enough to kill an enemy, not to mention his ability to permanently accumulate maximum health by killing minions with basic attacks.

In the end, the old Sion didn't have a bad or weak skill set, but he lacked an identity to define his role in the game.

For this reason, he received a visual and gameplay rework, better fitting the role of a colossus with excess health and unstoppable even to death.

In his rework, Sion gained the ability to revive for a short period if he is killed. As he is already considered dead, and his respawn time starts to count, he is reborn shortly after dying. This style allows the player to worry less about their own life and more about objectives such as towers or epic monsters.

Sion's first ability became a large area ax that, when charged, launches all enemies hit upwards, very efficient for shooting down minion waves.

The second ability remains his explosive shield, but it doesn't do as much damage as before. Additionally, this ability permanently accumulates maximum health for Sion for each kill, whether minion, champion or monster.

In his third ability, Sion shouts and pushes the first non-champion unit. Any target crossed by this unit has its movement speed and armor reduced.

His ultimate makes him unstoppable while running in one direction. It's difficult to maneuver, but it's possible to make slight turns by directing with the mouse. At the end or when hitting a champion or structure, Sion deals area damage and stuns nearby targets.

Urgot

At its launch, Urgot had a very simplistic play style, the player threw the third skill that broke armor and marked the enemy champion, then the second skill created a shield that made his basic attacks and his first skill cause slow, and then used the first skill whenever it came out of cooldown.

Like Sion, Urgot didn't fit very well into any role, having little damage for a marksman and weak resistance for a tanker. Therefore, Riot used visual and gameplay updates to make him a much more efficient fighter.

Whenever Urgot shoots towards one of his knees, he deals additional physical damage in a cone and the knee goes on cooldown, this forces Urgot to move around the opponent and line up each of his six knees to deal more damage.

Urgot's first ability is very similar to his old third ability, slowing and breaking armor in a small area.

His second ability became a machine gun that reduces his movement speed with three attacks per second on a nearby random target, however, when hitting any skill on an enemy champion, his machine gun focuses on that same opponent.

His third ability has become a small advancement that grants shield. If this shield hits an enemy champion, this shield knocks them behind Urgot.

His ultimate is a long-range harpoon that causes a strong slowdown and, if the enemy is below a certain percentage of health, the ability is reactivated by pulling that enemy towards Urgot and executing it. When executing enemies with his ultimate, Urgot causes terror in an area.

To date, the Visual gameplay reworks have proven to be very effective in bringing new life to forgotten or abandoned champions.

Considering how little has already been announced about Skarner's rework, it is notable that the essence of the champion was maintained, with the play style of a scorpion that rushes into the middle of the enemy team and pulls one of them onto its team. The update for Skarner is expected to arrive in the first half of 2024.

According to Riot's announcements, he will have an ability in which he pulls a boulder from the ground to cause additional damage in his attacks and can reactivate the ability to throw it at opponents.

One of his abilities, probably his 'W', provides Skarner with a shield and deals area damage, receiving more shield depending on the number of enemies affected. Another ability makes Skarner advance over terrain such as walls, grab an enemy champion and continue running.

A cone ability was also announced that pulls all enemy champions hit close to Skarner.

As for Arcane's mystery champion, considering that Jinx, Jayce, and Caitlyn seem to be doing well in the game, that leaves Vi, Viktor, Heimerdinger, and Singed for the update.

I believe that the most deserving of this update would be Singed and Heimerdinger. Even though Singed is quite strong with the new items and with a 53% win rate in patch 14.2, he still has a pick rate of just 2.5% while Heimerdinger has a pick rate of 0.8% and 48% win rate.

Both champions are strong candidates to receive a complete visual and gameplay update, as they don't please a large part of the community.

Shivana's Rework is planned for 2025, and only concept art for the character has been revealed:

We have high expectations for the next reworks and I would like your opinion. What do you think of the reworks released so far? And which Arcane character do you believe will be updated?

Thanks for reading!