With Patch 10.11, the second champion rework of League of Legends Season 10 entered the Rift under a deluge of thunderbolts.
In his lore, Volibear ascended to the rank of semi-god to match the story of Ornn, who's supposed to be his brother. As a consequence, the armored bear left room for a wilder design using thunder and claws.
Although it might be one of the coolest champions Riot Games ever designed, the ability kit and the stats of the Relentless Storm immediately felt weak. Numbers don't lie: following the release of its rework, Volibear has the lowest victory rate in the game.
Admittedly, Riot Games pushed a hotfix to help balance this rate, but it didn't really address the issue as it's still incredibly low: less than 40% in the highest ranks for an overall win rate of roughly 45%.
So, why is Volibear so weak?
With this rework, Riot Games was aiming at making Volibear less frustrating to play and more consistent — as the old armored bear felt quite unplayable in the current League meta. He was either kited and unable to reach his target, or suddenly popping from bushes to catch a target and lacerate it.
Some might argue that Volibear's new ability kit brought a quite interesting mechanic, as his ultimate R - Stormbringer allows him to temporarily deactivate towers, just like the now-removed Ohmwrecker used to do. Although this effect sounds incredibly powerful, there are a lot of flaws that prevent the Relentless Storm from actually performing.
His base stats are bad
- While you would expect a Juggernaut to be tanky, Volibear isn't really robust and requires a tremendous amount of items to be useful as a front line. At the same time, he has a huge hitbox, making it really hard to dodge spells.
He lacks defensive tools
- Sure, Volibear can receive a pretty nice shield thanks to his E - Sky Splitter but it needs to be timed properly, making the spell really easy to predict.
- With his old passive gone, Volibear can now only rely on W - Frenzied Maul to sustain, but you still need to proc it twice on the same target to get the heal. While the spell is really good in itself, the fact it is the only source Volibear can rely on to sustain doesn't feel balanced at all.
- R - Stormbringer grants a max HP buff, but it only procs when you land on the ground and not when you're casting the spell, making it super tricky to use properly.
His ability kit feels uncomplete
- Although E - Sky Splitter is very pleasant to use since it has no casting time, it remains really hard to hit a moving target. Plus, the cooldown remains very long as long as you don't buy CDR items.
- Your Passive - The Relentless Storm will work against you if you plan to play in the toplane as it will completely prevent you from freezing waves of minions.
- The range of R - Stormbringer feels incredibly hard to understand nor to use, and the tower deactivation still feels buggy — even after the hotfix.
Conclusion
Overall, the new ability kit of Volibear is as cool as interesting — but it's missing something.
The fundamental defect is his lack of speed: Volibear remains much too slow and predictable, which makes it almost unplayable at higher ranks.
This rework was aimed at casual League of Legends players and it fits quite well into this momentum but modifications are still to be expected if the demigod wants to make room for a better level of play.
What do you think of this rework? Do you feel Volibear's old design was better? Feel free to drop your opinion in the comment section below!
While the rework of Volibear should arrive in the Rift with Patch 10.11, the development team took the time to answer our questions. Design, gameplay and process, discover the making of the Relentless Storm!
Original content by "Nam".
