Wukong is set for a major overhaul on the PBE ahead of League of Legends Patch 10.5, including now being able to cast his reworked ultimate twice, according to Riot’s senior champion designer August ‘August’ Browning.
Earlier this week, Riot revealed the Monkey King was finally on the menu for his long-awaited rework, and confirmed August — previously in charge of updating champions like Morgana, Kayle, and Rengar — was taking over from Lutzburg.
According to Riot, the update is expected to return Wukong to his “tricky” roots, and switch him from mid back to top and into the jungle. Now, August has unveiled just how the Monkey King will change in Season 10.
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Double the ultimate, twice the power
Perhaps the biggest change for the Monkey King is August’s decision to double his ultimate power, which should also give him more playmaking power through the ability to “cast R twice” instead of just once.
At the moment, Wukong’s ‘Cyclone’ ultimate gives him 5%-40% increased movement speed, and causes the champ to spin his staff for up to four seconds. During this time, any enemy struck by his staff is damaged and knocked up.
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In August’s new plans, Wukong can now activate this devastating ultimate a second time, as long as it’s within seven seconds of the first activation.
To trade off this added power, the Cyclone ult will now have its duration dropped from four seconds to two, will grant only 20/30/40% movement speed (based on levels instead of time active), and has reduced overall damage.
There will also be a few smaller tweaks added to the ultimate in the PBE package, including a reduction (1 second down to 0.5) to the cancel window, and a change to tick rate (0.5s to 0.25s). Conqueror now also procs on each tick.
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Monkey king see, monkey king do
Alongside the ult, August also confirmed the fighter’s W ability, Warrior Trickster, was one part of Wukong’s kit Riot wanted to change most. This makes sense considering the devs are looking to bring him back to his “tricky” roots.
In the unveiled rework, the W ability now allows Wukong to “dash over small walls” with 300 range, at the cost of the stealth duration being dropped (1.5s to 1s). Its area of effect magic damage has also been removed.
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The core changes to Warrior Trickster comes in the way the clone works — the duplicate now “mimics Wukong’s attacks and ultimate,” but deals just 30%-70% of each copied ability. The clone is automatically destroyed by towers.
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The clone also has one more feature for the monkey fighter in the rework. Whenever Wukong or his clone deal damage with basic attacks or spells, his Q’s cooldown, changed from 9–5 to 10–6, will be reduced by 0.5 seconds.
This Wukong changelist will go out to PBE tomorrow, picking up where @RiotLutzburg left off.
Highlights:YOU CAN CAST R TWICEW has a dash that goes over wallsThe clone mimics your attacks, Q, and R (dealing reduced damage)Q CD goes down when you or your clone damage things pic.twitter.com/m0VRgQ0oRX
— August (@RiotAugust) February 19, 2020
Changes already afoot for “experimental” early tweaks
While these massive changes to Wukong’s overall power and core kit may seem like a bit of overkill, there’s a good chance many of the tweaks and upgrades may not actually ever see the light of day on League’s live server.
As he revealed the host of changes for the Monkey King, August also reminder players these proposed changes were “experimental,” and “may be removed, added, [or] changed,” before Wukong is actually shipped in Patch 10.5.
The champion designer mentioned he was “still not happy with the passive,” suggesting the Stone Skin tweaks may be most likely to be changed soon. “Damage tuning may also be off… could be too strong, or too weak,” he added.
August also revealed that, just hours after first implementing the change into the PBE, issues arose with Stone Skin’s particles, and it was hooked. “It was good, but we don’t have the resources for it at the moment,” he confirmed.
League of Legends Patch 10.5 is expected to drop on March 4, but that has been no official confirmation this Wukong rework will be ready in a fortnight. It may well arrive in Patch 10.6, which is scheduled for Wednesday, March 18.
The full change list can be seen below:
Base Stats:
- Magic resistance: 32.1 >> 28
- Health: 557.8 >> 540
Stone Skin (P):
- Armor: 4/6/8 per nearby champion >> 5+1/lvl
- MR: 4/6/8 per nearby champion >> removed
- Now grants 1% max health regen per 5s
- Bonuses (armor and regen) are increased by 4x when three or more enemy champions are nearby
- Now checks for enemies every 0.25s (from every 1s)
Crushing Blow (Q):
- Bonus Damage: 10-130 (+0-40% AD) >> 30-110 (+0.7 BAD)
- Bonus Range: 125 >> 75-175
- Armor Shred Duration: 3s >> 4s
- New: Whenever Wukong or his clone deal damage with basic attacks or spells, Q’s CD is reduced by 0.5 seconds
- Cooldown: 9-5 >> 10-6
- Mana cost: 40 >> 30-50
- Cast time now scales with Attack Speed
Warrior Trickster (W):
- New: Added a 300 range dash that can go over small walls (the same as Kindred Q)
- Stealth duration: 1.5s >> 1s
- No longer does AOE magic damage on despawn
- Cooldown: 18-10 >> 22-14
- Mana cost: 50-70 >> 50
- The clone now mimics Wukong’s attacks and ultimate, but deals 30-70% damage
- Q: empowers clone’s next attack
- E: the clone gains the AS buff
- R: the clone starts spinning and will knock up enemies that haven’t been knocked up already
- The clone mirrors Wukong’s animation state on spawn
- Attacks from towers now instantly kill the clone
Nimbus Strike (E):
- Damage: 65-205 (+0.8 BAD) physical >> 80-260 (+1.0 AP) magic
- AS buff duration: 4 >> 5
- CD: 8 >> 10-8
- Mana cost: 45-65 >> 40-60
- Offset distance from unit dashed to: 0 >> 75
- Dash now follows the target, similar to Lee Sin Q
Cyclone (R):
- R can now be cast a 2nd time within 7 seconds. The second cast will not knock up enemies hit by the first
- Spin duration: 4s >> 2s
- Damage per second: 20-200 (+1.1 TAD) >> 1.2 TAD +2.5-8.5% (+1%/100 AD) max health
- MS while spinning: 5-40% based on time >> 20/30/40% based on skill rank
- Time before you can cancel spin: 1s >> 0.5s
- Tick rate: 0.5s >> 0.25s
- Each tick of damage now applies Conqueror
- Attack range while spinning: 175 >> 50
- Wukong can now cast other spells to cancel R, stopping the spin
- E’s attack speed duration is refreshed while spinning
- Added a buff timer to the spell icon to show how much spin time is left
