I think you forgot to mentioned that Riot also just overbuffed Viktor to the moon right on his "rework" patch and just now finally nerf him in the current mid patch.
I think u missed the fact that Viktor got overbuffed with the release of VGU, which i would say is the main reason his playrate is so high. He went from one of the worst midlaners, to almost 50% ban rate, literally strongest midlaner in the game, one of the strongest adcs, and a decent toplaner.
yea, surprise surprise making his ult NOT suck made him more fun to play, who would've guessed? i've been bitching about how underwhelming his ult has been since they removed the silence from it lol
Sure they overbuffed him, but he wasn't weak before. His main problem is that he didn't fit into the meta, getting steamrolled in mid game by champs with stronger sidelane and more wake clear, champs like Yone and Aurora.
Yeah he is overbuffed which bringed ppl to him and some of them might stay with him nkw plus arcane boom even tho is over, viktor still has this arcane aura over his head and will have for like half a year. But yeah him being the best champion in a game explains more than enough😂
Absolutely, it felt a bit disingenuous from Necrit to omit that fact entirely. As if pick rate is purely based on the appeal of the character and not on how powerful they actually are ingame. When Smolder had an almost 60% winrate it certainly wasn't his design that made people pick him either.
He exploded in pick rate because they hella buffed him. His ban rate probably increased by a similar magnitude, and that obviously has nothing to do with the visual update.
Nah the spike and Arcane " obviously has nothing to do with the visual update" pop on popularity. Everyone was coming to play it for the amazing buff of a new ult efect and a few number changes that even the pros and the top 1 victor main said that it was cool but nothing suprising and just make him from trash to playable.
It's 100% because he's good again. Viktor has been on and off hitting 15-20% payrate whenever he's considered strong. There would of been a jump either way with the remodel but people are still playing him because he's good again.
7:55 Legends of Runeterra Viktor didn't borg anyone against their will, all his companion cards willingly sought out Viktor's augments. He tries to convince them to borg *more* but they're content with a robot arm or metal chassis. Personally I think it's the best Viktor. He's passionate about his glorious evolution and easily morally grey.
What makes this 10 times funnier is how Jinx, Vi, Jayce and other characters from Arcane did not get a visual update to represent their new lore. They did get new skins but if you pick regular Jinx it feels like a totally different person than Arcane Jinx. They could've done the same with Viktor while still making a VGU.
Ye, they all should've and hopefully eventually still will get ASUs at the very least. Sadly making the Arcane skins creates a problem, where giving ASUs to those champs becomes counterproductive If they were to turn Jinx into the way she's in Arcane, they would basically be throwing the 200$ skin in the trash and I can't imagine how riot would do that
Imo this never made sense. The old visual should have been a legacy skin people get for free if they claim it and the skin should have been the new base model.
Necrit pointed out that Pros do not see any substantial increase in his playability that would result in higher play rates. Meaning its the same kit, and as Necrit pointed out its purely from the VGU and Arcane.
@@michaelgrable7053 okay? pro scene doesn't dictate why play rate of something is high and low. plus plenty of pro's are saying nerf viktor jankos for instance calls viktor op everygame he's in and viktor has a perma pick or ban rate up there as well so pretty sure they already back paddled what you just said. his playabilty might not be better because the kit didn't change but what riot did change are his numbers that are way way too high due to the arcane buffs so now he's op hence why the playrate is high.
@@kyubikitsunae3987 "that was it" lmao did you not see the full page of stat increases on all his abilties in the patch notes? he already got a hotfix nerf after that but it still isn't enough even that's how much they added.
8:29 OMG FINALLY SOMEONE THAT NOTICES he looks absolutely nothing like the show, in ANY of his versions, like all of them look so different from eachother im not even sure they checked them side by side
Im more upset that they had AMAZING concept art for Viktors transformation in the show, a concept that WAS the best of both worlds AND liked by Viktor fans new and old. There was so much potential for this but Riot themself alongside the remaining show writers seemed to be in an Echo Chamber of their own. VGUs have to and should be made with transparency. Nevermind the fact that alot of Viktor mains were also rightfully worried that theyve set the stage for this happening to ANY CHAMPION THATS DIFFERENT IN A NEW RIOT SHOW.
Old viktor was also a cult leader right? For pretty much the same reason they loved him in part 2 of season 2, he was helping people in zuan and got a reputation but with more mech magic than "touch your face to reshape you" magic.
@@BlinksTehShitkinda, Viktor didn't care to lead a cult or force anything. He just helped people and people built a cult around him cuz of it (at least for og Viktor).
I don’t think Viktor being too much like Doom is that big of a flaw. Gangplank is literally just a pirate but they didn’t break the mold that drastically with his design and lore. They should’ve just updated the Machine Herald instead of replacing it with Malzahar 2.0
I am so tired of dr doom comparison. Even Jhin is more of a dr Doom design, nobody cares about that And Ahri is a kitsune 1 : 1, pantheon *was* just a spartan, amumu is just a mummy, nasus is just an anubis etc, doesn't mean they should become some other characters if they become a part of a popular show in which the author decided to make ahri a cat girl or something And worst of all is that when Malzahar gets ASU, he will surely be better than Viktor in every way except maybe he wasn't featured in any media, and we will have basically 2 of the same character
@@pandaescarlate7268 Bro you have no idea what you're talking about doom is a whole massively complex character, they look similar but everything else is different
Considering how many champs there are 4% it's nothing to sneeze at. We're not talking about a fraction, that's a whole number. There are lots of champs that would dream about having a 4% pick rate.
A 4% pickrate is totally fine. It puts you about right in the middle of the pack for the 160 champs we have. The rework just feels like they wanted to integrate something from the show into League that wouldn't be a skin, without really thinking about how not every League player is also an Arcane fan. His old design wasn't even dated on a conceptual level, he just needed visual adjustments because his model was old. Instead they made him an Eldritch Abomination even though his old concept was totally fine. The only thing good about the VGU is that he feels much smoother to play while keeping his gameplay feel the same in terms of how you approach him.
The champion number 80 on pickrate (aurora) is just below 5% pickrate (4.98) and the champion 103 (riven) is just below 4% (3.97) so yeah, 4% is close to the average
Tbh he feels completely teribble to play in my eyes. I hate this new Q animations, I hate his W and I could go on. Some things are harder to see, some things feel bad to use and the design is horibble
@@forhyrule8428 Then you are rather on the small side. He is pretty broken right now and his ban-rate is insanely high for a mid laner. He is #4 of all played champions with 19% pick rate and has the highest ban rate with 44%. But chmapion feeling is different. You may not like to play with him.
the Viktor mains Riot supposedly said they took feedback from is a blatant lie. If you ask any Viktor main about what is the one thing he needs to be changed the most, then the answer would be most of the time, his kit and especially his W. Riot didn't care a shit about what we wanted to see
It's not that VGU worked - it's that Arcane worked. If Viktor in arcane went hexcore upgrades by machinery like in original lore, and kept the original "vibe" - the pickrates would still be the same, or even higher cuz original 4% would continue to pick him. The notion that VGU worked is a fallacy.
100% This one. In season 1 everybody saw that Viktor was not healthy. Those who knew about OG Viktors story just wanted to see how he becomes the machine herald and not some arcane alien abomination. We wanted to see Cyborg Hextech Jesus dammit.
5:43 That's actually a lie. Riot stated that they asked a bunch of Viktor mains about the new spells, but not a single Viktor main was actually asked about the changes. There was a big Reddit thread about that situation.
A main is someone that spends their time pushing matches in Challenger, not dudes that can't get out of Gold and post on Reddit groups for Champion mains, get real buddy.
@ Tell that to viktor otp streamers who are in fact pushing challenger. And yes, riot never reached them, only after the backlash but it was too late by then so they just buffed him buddy
14:32 You forgot to mention one crucial point: They made Viktor insanely op and what happens when a champion suddenly becomes really strong? Exactly, they get abused a lot. The moment Viktor gets as strong as before the rework, what eventually will happen, his winrate and playrate will both decrease
It's the usual disingenuous corpo talk that every Riot bootlicker uses, use numbers/facts and decore it with lies to gaslight people. Riot August is a master at using this kind of corpo talk.
Even corki with that atrocious design had like 12%+ pick rate with that crazy R build some time last year, new skarner was one of the most picked champions before the nerfs, now hes at 2 - 4%
It's not over, Viktor Mains are working on more community pushback, letters, etc. The letter featured in the video has over 60 long individual letters people wrote to explain what they liked in old Viktor and why, many poured their hearts and souls into that. If anyone glances there they'll see detailed analyses of his lore, visuals, thematic. Nobody would have a problem if Arcane released its character as a new champion, because this simply is not Viktor. He's being played because he's overbuffed.
It is not going to work . There haven't been a single time where a ASU has been reverted. The only thing I can see happening is riot making a new skin for victor that is more robot focus . Be he would be still skinny
Ok as viktor main this is also genuinely pathetic the truth is I like the new design at most I ask that they release a classic skin but nothing more all the other requests are ridiculous because to change the new viktor they would also have to change their version of wild rift and that's impossible besides throwing away a lot of work don't be childish and just get over it bro
As one of the main Viktor players who disliked the VGU, we didn’t attempt to boycott the update. Instead, we requested that Riot make a decision. Either commit to developing a new Arcane Viktor or make the “VGU” a skin. Riot completely removed Viktor’s identity from League of Legends and replaced him with a polished generic mage that resembles Malzahar more closely. As Necrit mentioned, if this champion had been released as a new champion, it would have been incredible. However, this champion isn’t Viktor; it’s a new character that wears Viktor’s staff and third arm to claim that it’s still Viktor. While his old design was flawed, he had a distinct and unique identity. He simply needed lore refinement and a new approach to his appearance. Christian Linke’s claim that he didn’t meet today’s creative standards when it comes to a champion created 13 years ago makes no sense. Using his pick rate to claim that the VGU was a “success” is absurd because let’s see how it performs in a month. In just three weeks, the pick rate has dropped by 50%. The 3% pick rate he had before the rework is not “unpopular” by any means, considering we have over 160 champions. A 3% pick rate is quite good. Skarner had a 0.3% pick rate before the rework and now he has a 4-5% pick rate. Ultimately, a captivating concept was sacrificed for a generic and safe one that fails to bring anything new to the game or the lore. The old Viktor could have been integrated into Arcane, but we ended up with an Avengers Endgame-style ending that made him the villain who forced all the characters to unite against him. In my opinion, this felt weak and poorly executed. His new design has completely lost my appeal as a player, even though the kit remains the same.
@conniefan123 he has a staff, cape, and uses magic. Old Viktor had 2 out of the 3 and instead of using magic he used his inventions. There are only a few champs that use their inventions that you can count on one hand. But how many mages that use magic while floating around are there in League of Legends. The approach is generic wizard that does wizard shit. Meanwhile old Viktor was crazy trans-human scientist using his inventions to improve himself and protect himself from dangers in Zaun.
@@HANCOCK_LOL right lol, and most of the other tech but not inventor champions use tech that was made by others, the few inventors I can think of are, Heimer, Ekko, Vik, Jinx, Rumble, Corki, a few but still a small roster when thinking of all leagues champs
@conniefan123 it's his entire vibe as Piltover/Zaun champion, they're supposed to appear as steampunk characters in fantasy world. Now he looks like another resident of Targon.
My opinion is, is that niche champions play a major role in league, since with a roster of over 160 champions, you dont need another champion that is generally good in everything. Very specialized quirky champions absolutely have room in the pool.
First person with an actual brain I've seen when talking about league balance. Niche champs ( at least on my opinion ) are ALWAYS more fun that objectively stronger / op champs
Damn never thought you'll make a video on this. I'm not even a Viktor Main and I feel so bad for them as it is similar to the Aatrox rework where a champ lost its identity, whether it was gameplay-wise or lore-wise. edit: I assume Empathy is hard for some
@MayorOfEarth79 Even if it was so called ass, changing a champion from being a Basic Attacker to a Ability Caster was criminal. It would be like reworking Master Yi and making him into a Ability caster
@@MayorOfEarth79 Imagine you mained jinx and then they rework him into ezreal, you'd probably be very disappointed with the rework even if ezreal is a more "modern" design
this is the complete opposite of Aatrox rework, the problem with Aatrox is that his gameplay was aight but his lore was kinda aight too, yet they changed it all, while Viktor had an already cool identity but an atrocious gameplay, and yet they changed both instead of just the onae that was worse
I do think you should've mentioned that when Viktor's VGU released, his numbers were buffed to the point where he was extremely broken, which 100% adds to his increase in playrate. The same happened when they reworked Skarner, he was extremely strong and as he got weaker and weaker patch by patch, his playrate went down substantially. (And yes I'm still mad that they deleted my main...)
Join the club. I still miss old poppy r. Old sion. Old yorick (that dude really needed a rework. He was kept weak intentionally, but if you didnt run it down early you could still absolutely demolish with him.) Old urgot with the lock on. Old mordekaiser, semi-old mordekaiser😂 (i actually started to like the mordekaiser rework and then they reworked him again). Old shen. Old akali. Old taric (i got a pentakill with old taric top, a game where my team was flaming and trolling because of my troll pick, but i carried that). With so many champs i liked removed from the game i wonder why i kept playing for aslong as i did
@@x-nimator9997 Hello, pre rework skarner main here poping in to commentate on this take real quick: He is not in fact "still the same" like and subscribe for more info about pre rework skarner!
What you are failing to disclose is his buffs. You saying there was no gameplay changes is crazy, his passive is now giving more charges on cannon minions which speeds up his evolutions, w got bug fixed and buffed and R grows in size and Q had a early game shield buff... Champ was legit 53% win rate with 25% pick rate for days after release while before he was 49% win rate. Boycott would not be visible on the graph because of how small viktor community is but you can see his pick rate going down before the rework release. People were mostly upset that VIktor went from a cyborg to a Arcane twink. Traditional skin would solve all the issues.
The funniest thing is that they made a completely new character, taking into account the lore and the visual component, but left the old skills and this is what I think for the mains Victor, you kind of understand that this should be a completely new character, but you don’t feel any difference at all, he even laughs like the old Victor It’s completely strange considering what kind of Victor is in Arcane.
Eh i see it but its also like they only similar if you dont play league. Malz is pretty clear void purple and from shurima with his rags. Viktor is pretty clearly technology/fleshy which is most used in zaun or piltover. Side by side their very much different styles and characters. The only similarities is the role of prophet. To which depicts their roles. Viktor feels like a cult leader. Malz feels like a npc cultist . To which yeah is distinct enough
That's the only reason why his pick rate increased, He was giga buffed. Looking at his skins side by side I'm not really convinced many people sought out the new Viktor because he looks cool.
I agree so much with the points people make that now hes just another mage (and we already have lot of those) and how the change of look is so drastic it just doesn't feel the same...as for me I feel sad there's not so many robotic themes on league and now with viktor Being so different,not only Blitz isn't cannon anymore but everything just feels full of mages now
@@TheJamieellis apparently he was going to appear in the second season, but the people at Fortiche thought he was too silly and cut him out So I choose to believe he's still canon, but it wasn't shown
I just wish that this Viktor was a seperate because hes quite literally not the machine herald and it feels like it clashed with his personality in s1 of Arcane and obviously his old bio. His current bio is so devoid of any actual information and is completely ambiguous. (Netcrit make a video on his updated bio pleaseee. the theories could be wild)
Doing so would spoil Arcane because it would confirm whether Jayce and Viktor died or not. (They didn't, Jayce is right there, but the Arcane newbies don't know that)
@@guest_zzroman2076 wait it would confirm there alive? Genuinely im curious how it does cause ive been looking for peices of hope on how they lived- can you explain a little more or are you referencing season 1 after jinx shot the shark?
Main thing bio confirmed is that piltower cowered up what happened to him after the explosion and everything that happened him are basicly considered conspiracy teories, also the nature of his research got cowered up as well. Also yes they most likely alive and just teleported, the way they disapeared looked similar to how the mage teleported jayce in ep2, and the rune they used is also the one jayce and ekko used for dimention travel.
@hajnahortobagyi690 thats exactly what ive been theorizing so its good to know its not just me- i havent seen many covers on the updated bio cause everyone has been occupied with the skin difference.
Ah yes. The Viktor drama. Arcane season2! Big buff boi! Arcane over time 2 nerf Play rate line go down no body cares anymore except viktor mains forced to stare at abomination
14:15 this entire point is just wrong. Viktor went from being mediocre to one of the strongest characters in the game after the update. That's why he is getting played so much.
Yes i‘d even argue a 4% pick-rate in a game with over 150 champions is above average. There is soo much variety in this game 4% tells me this dude is being played more than many other forgotten champions.
if they just made viktor turn into old viktor in arcane and updated his ingame visuals to match current day standards he wouldve been just as popular if not more...
Yeah I hate how there are people who makes it sound like Viktor only became popular due to his new look as if he wouldn’t have been as popular if Arcane properly showed off original Machine Herald
I just don't get how they clarified his character in legends of runeterra like a year ago, to then entirely throw it away and make a new character Edit: I just realized that happened in 2020, that was way longer than i thought
Also important to mention that Arcane was supposed to be its own story, not a part of the game cannon. But the show became to popular, and since than new players are confused from the difference of the game lore and the show lore - so the higher ups at Riot decided to make it, and everything else coming forward to be cannon the same cannon.
@E_D___ which was a really stupid decision. So many champs got screwed over with making arcane canon. So many champs werent even mentioned while they are part of zaun or piltover. They really shouldve just kept the 2 seperate
@@NTTofMistery No champ was screwed, wtf. Even the not mentioned characters are still completely viable in Arcane's lore. Renata as a new chembaron, Zeri as a Firelight member, Urgot and Mundo are just dudes with a bunch of chems, Blitzcrank is a robot that could've perfectly been made by Viktor offscreen. Like, Blitz wasn't even originally invented by Viktor in his first lore iteration. Its inventor was never an important part of him, and it still isn't. There is no character screwed by Arcane, unless you think the world ceased to exist after the end of Arcane because Aurelion was grumpy.
@@E_D___ The thing is them also doing that only partially. Like not touching some of cait's traps being yordle traps. Why would cait be trapping yordles with arcane taken into account. And Vi having a bunch of police brutality quotes seem really jarring considering her stuggles in the show
@@frostfrost8907 Camille, Seraphine, Zac & Ezreal Also how does the Brackern hearts factor into this? I know it was semi-retconned by Skarner’s VGU, but Ezrael, Camille, Seraphine’s voice lines all mention the Hexcores either being straight up Brackern-hearts or having some form of sentience. And how does Camille factor into this? Game lore Camille has had her Hextech implants for 40+ years (because Jayce didn’t invent them) but in Arcane Hextech is completely new, are they goin to make Camille canonically younger than the cast of Arcane or are they going to have to completely rework her lore too
I hate hte VGU cause the kit doesn't feel like the character we saw in the Show. I want a Rework, not a VGU. Also, the 3rd arm just looks bad, silhouette wise, on his VGU. It feels like it's just there cause they failed to come up with any else.
You are messing up the terms, VGU is a visual and gameplay update, aka, a rework. Viktor was promised a VGU, but in the end, he only got an ASU, aka, an Art and Sustainability Update (with new visuals, and slight changes to W and R).
Even worse. His skins keep the OG rails the arm was on. But they kind of awkwardly shuffle it onto a pauldron or something. So they didn't even have the awareness to just delete the now nonfunctioning element, but just made it into an ugly useless element to his armour. Yes, the OG design had the 3rd arm on rails so it could move all the way to his chest. No, we don't see it move more than up to his shoulders AFAIK.
The worst thing? The new design is pretty okay (not a big fan of twinks but whatever. And whatever the fuck the claw is about with the new one.), and I feel like he would've worked kinda well as an antagonist to Viktor. New Viktor blabbers about the "Glorious Evolution" or whatever, people see his weird ass dolls and go "Oh? Nah fam, I'd rather not become a soulless machine". Like, I dunno, have old Viktor be the mentor to new Viktor - and instead of going the same path, they just have a MASSIVELY different opinion on the topic of Glorious Evolution, ultimately causing them to fall out with each other. Old Viktor only wants to help people that actively request help, while new Viktor forcefully converts each and every single one he comes across - like it is in the show. I just wish he would've been a bit more...doll-like, like the machine dolls he had in S2.
Well like even here it doesn't make a lot of sense. They could have picked from any kind of Viktor IN THE SHOW. They picked the most alien and arcane looking one, when they could have chosen a different point in the timeline. This form of viktor isn't even the show's most up-to-date form for Viktor, where he looks more human-like. They chose the form for viktor he had for maybe a day? There's so many issues with this when you keep thinking about it. The design doesn't even match the show's design, the voicelines sound like a different character from the show too (not VA wise though that's also true, but in terms of personality). Glorious Evolution and The Claw and stuff are there simply because Old Viktor had it- but why bother with any of that if you're making ALL NEW VIKTOR? Everything about new viktor in LOL feels forced and half-assed simultaneously imo.
it wasnt just a visual change, his ultimate - when fully upgraded - gets bigger and bigger while active on champion kills/takedowns and thats acutally a big reason for a higher player count since it gives you lots of happy feelings when you see a massive AoE damage field like a 70+ minutes aurelion sol stars ascend ulti
From an all time Warwick main - realistically Warwick was changed just as much as Viktor. Warwick's character and vibe and were completely different. Viktor used to be a cyborg, now he's cyborgy-magic-metal man. Warwick used to be just a werewolf with metal claws and now he is a chemical werewolf with pipes going all throughout his body. If you think about it - it's basically the same level of change. The only difference being that Ww rework was straight up a better design (But if you ask me that's not really a difference here)
@@dorians2138 WW is still a werewolf, Viktor is not a cyborg anymore, hope that helps. You can jump around a bush and say that he is somewhat metallic or "cyborgy", but he is not a cyborg period. Sure, ww got a chemical pump and a metal arm, but that is just a nuance to his clearly werewolf character For Viktor it is the opposite, this is a completely different character with a nuance being "Viktor mains would get mad if they removed the third arm, so they kept it"
Warwick used to be friends with soraka, it's an extremely old story but he was chanaged massively as well, he was a warewolf with a heart of gold but now he's an anti hero pre-arcane and now post acane he's a mindless beast
@@dorians2138 Warwick is still a werewolf, New viktor has nothing mechanical about him, his claw looks more like something a void champion would have, his colors makes him look like something out of Targon, when Ekko explodes his face off, you can't see any cogs, wires or anything remotely mechanical inside him, if just being made of metallic slop is enough to be considered a cyborg, then Mordekaiser is as cyborgy as Viktor.
14:28 Base Stats Health Growth: 104 ⇒ 100 Armor Growth: 5.2 ⇒ 4.4 There's a reason these changes were hotfixed in Viktor was overtuned after the buffs they gave him in the "gameplay update" side
My biggest issue with arcane viktor is that one of the writers/directors (i dont remember which) are saying that both Viktor and Jayce are just straight up dead. Leaving no room for the ambiguous fate the show left us with. Never mind "the arcane" has already shown the potential to transcend time and space, just dead. My second biggest issue is the design they ended up using for his league model. It barely resembles the one from the show other than looking gaunt. Personally, i wish that arcane stayed as a side-canon thing, rather than becoming mainline, but i feel that sentiment is not uncommon. Arcane is great, but it changes a little too much from what was already established. Arcane Viktor could have been an awesome legendary skin, and even if his base model stayed the machine herald, the laser arm would have felt. Hell, make it an ultimate skin and allow him to shift between arcane herald and arcane celestial. Sadly we didnt get that. I was never a huge Viktor player, I dont really have a main, but i did enjoy his kit and design. He was one of the first champs to release after i joined league, having joined between volibear and ahri's release, so I do have that little bit of connection with his old design.
You put some respect on old Trundles name, his replacement is about as bad as Viktors. The old lore trolls had great regeneration powers, but also had a curse on them that caused their skin to melt away. Their healing was enough to prolong their lives long enough to reproduce, but they lived in constant pain and had to deal with their bodies decaying at an accelerated rate while they were still alive. Trundle was born with regeneration so powerful that it looked like he didnt have the curse at all, though he did. Rather than enjoy the benefits of his mutation however, he allowed a Shaman to put the curse of all his people onto him alone. The entire races curses together are enough to exactly match his insane regeneration, so he ended up in a constant state of his flesh falling off him and regenerating back just as fast, leaving him a horrible monster in constant pain, but the rest of his race got to live normal lives free of the curse. New Trundle found a big stick made of special ice and declared himself king. The rest of the trolls dont agree.
The reasoning behind Trundle's retcon is asinine in hindsight. Rito said it was to cut down on the amount of factions and make the lore more cohesive, but look at League now and we've since gotten an entire new City-State with Ixtal, all the other locations have been been split more and more into different factions, and the lore itself is still just as much of a mess if not more so.
I love goofy ass current Trundle, but holly shit that is fucking metal. Makes him really fucking cool as a character choosing to accept everyone's agony onto himself just so the rest of his people can live.
His short story is underated as hell. It has so many interpretations as to what where his true intentions with the kid and sets him up so well for future stories that never came... Hilariusly enought, his bio still links to it.
@hajnahortobagyi690 i hadn't checked but I was certain it would lol... On a more important note I'd not addressed though wth is the point of his third arm now? I like that they at least tried to improve the skins some but what's the point of his third arm? Unless he had it in part 2 for some reason I've not watched it yet really didn't like Viktor from the first part (I'm also super broke)
@@Chris-cf6ul they kinda imply he does magic with it? Like this is how he casts spells. But why it looks like the laser he built and why it needs to fire a laser makes 0 sence. Its not even there cuz he melted his laser into himself, he just magicly grows it out of his back for no real reason.
And it was all going so well at the end of Arcane S1. Everything was set up for Viktor to get possesed by the arcane-turned-void-crystal, for Ryze to appear and enlist the help of Donger and Jayce to defeat him, for Victor to get completely crushed and become despised yet made self-aware again, for him to scuttle into Zaun and back to Singed only to reject his cynicism and in a sudden brink of inspiration find a new path. For him to still reject humanity and become yet another monster of Zaun, but one people would respect, not fear. For him to ally with Noxus only to betray them spectacularly and announce to the world his plan for The Glorious Evolution... But I live in this timeline instead.
The thing that irks me especially is that new Viktor is just Lissandra with a TV show telling his story. A disable mage doing unspeakable harm in the name of the greater good, that's just Lissandra.
@xhantTheFirst I guess I forgot to add the fact that both Viktor and Lissandra thought it would be best to let the world be invaded by an extradimensional dubiously sentient entity with a grudge against reality that wants to consume all life as we know it, only to stop it at the last second and prevent its entry into Runeterra. I don't know how I forgot to write that while considering it for what I was writing
@xhantTheFirst First of all, saying that there's a THIRD character this new Viktor is like when previous Viktor was similar to *none* isn't a point in new Viktor's favour. Second, I was considering, but forgot to write, the whole "They wanted to let an extradimensional dubiously sentient entity invade Runeterra to further their goals, but said entity had a grudge on all life and was hellbent on destroying it so they did a 180 and prevented it from entering reality." angle. Like, the only material difference is that Lissandra lived on and became a warden for the Void while Viktor was fucking vaporised and effectively died (until that is retconned too or they decide they want him and Jayce back)
My only real gripe is because Viktor’s kit is basically the same, with just a small change to his Ult and passive, it’s more like a glorified Arcane ASU not a full fledged VGU
one thing that should be mentioned regarding playrate and ban rate is that he got buffed in nearly all abilities the patch the remake came out so probably most ppl are just abusing him cause hes strong if not broken
5:43, I meeeeean technically one thing did. His W can finally stun properly. They said there was a bug they never fixed and were aware of and just… finally made his stun useful 😂 So the change there was… his W is not a worthless ability anymore!
Worst part is whatever they did boosted his winrates to the stratosphere so that was another reason his playrates increased. Dunno if it'll continue sticking that high if his numbers get brought down cause of it.
We lost more than just Blitz. Unless Riot's planning to retcon Arcane that is. You know, with the whole, "omg, hextech is actually bad and will corrupt and kills us all!" So like... every champion touched by Hextech is just going to have to get erased or retconned.
how come dota & heroes of newerth don't suffer from retconned yet only riot coastally changes their lore i guess by arcane logic something like " evil " doesn't exist just ignore every other war crime from the lol universe
@@chaosmachines934Dota's lore barely exists and very few characters have anything to do with more than one or two others, so there's no real need to retcon anything. I don't know enough about HoN to comment.
Problems really started to arise when the person who is reimagining the character saw no value in the old one. Making arcane canon was a mistake, and viktor was unfortunate enough to be the worst casualty of it. Being replaced by a character who was a rushed mess in the series and can not even be really improved cuz he is gone for the foreseeable future. Not to mention the whole abandoning the characters core and him now being represented by some one who existed for about... half a day.
@@yagnenttv yeah, i dont think peapole talk enought abaut how funny it is that now a champions main representation in game is one that bearly existed for half a day and spoke like... 10 half baked voice lines all together. I do think they will use him as a multiverse treath or a raid boss for the mmo or some bs but for now, its just some random wierdo who existed for a day. I dont even think folks who wached the show really care abaut him either, why would they?
The old Trundle is a REALLY REALLY GOOD BOI. Trundle had one of the most metal AF, yet heartwarming pieces of lore right there. Old Trundle was one goated mf.
+ league design far better than arcane design. Arcane viktor final form just looks disgusting let's be honest, the split face thing is the stupidest sh*t I've ever witnessed visually
Craziest part that it's not just the mask that looks different, in general, LoL Viktor looks like a weird fusion of Arcane Viktor and Old Viktor, not pleasing fans of both lol In the show, Viktor is a weird, shriveled up, alien thing, in the game Viktor is some high fantasy mage twink
Everyone has this opinion and mee too, I hope they rework him kitwise(and his mask in the OG one to be like arcanes) being in half ground is a bad idea.
Well necrit just does not play league anymore so its not a suprise Viktor numbers are partly VGU but he has absurd pickrate cause he is like top S tier midlaner since VGU
@@firesong7825 question is…why they could not stay with old robot like design and make it canon with arcane just letting Viktor build the mold for his armor and then let Singed use it as a tool to bring Viktor back to life after Jayce attack? It would be way more fun that this weird ass transformation to this bio godlike being?
@@alus992 right? lol "they're trying to make a cohesive canon..." they could start by not changing things that heavilly, then it wouldnt that hard to keep both league and arcane cohesive lmao, also if they went the robot line it would make more sense for piltover in general also WW, it would work wonders for WW transformation, instead of whatever that thing in the finale was
You are overseeing one thing why Viktor is so much more popular than before rework. It was buffed to hell together with VGU, to the point it’s a really good peek in 3 different roles. I don’t dismiss that new Viktor may have some appeal visually to certain people, but if any champion is in such a broken state its play rate spikes drastically. On the VGU note, it’s ok that Viktor is not my cup of tea anymore (although I’m really sad, but I understand why rito is doing that). But what to do with all the cosmetics I’ve got over the years for this champ? Now I own a pile of crap which doesn’t look like anything I bought, and I feel scammed.
@@TheLastGhostLegendario there are thing above and below average. Thats whx it is the average. Should every single character that is below average in pickrate be reworked?
Rito should offer refunds to the skins purchased before the VGU. The fact that a company can degrade the quality of virtual cosmetics-at any time-without facing consequences and simultaneously being immune to class-action lawsuits due to the ToS to access the product is deeply concerning and extremely consumer unfriendly.
@@josephdiscavage2709 making his vgu a skin still would be better and more consistence with how other caraters where handeled since it wouldnt delete the machine herald from the game. But yeah, its kinda ridiculus voliber got a free skin for a non existent version of his rework, and they didnt even bothered making a traditinal viktor skin after completely eareasing him
For me, my big hate for New Viktor is that it is quite literally just Malzahar. Prodigy in his field has a life-changing encounter with an otherworldly magical entity that forever changes them and their world view. He realises that individuality is a curse and that only via the destruction of the self can we achieve true freedom from pain and suffering as they are constants otherwise. He brings these new teachings to people and forms a cult, hoping to even further spread the word of his beliefs and converting people... sometimes by force. Who am i talking about here, Malzahar, the prophet of the void or Viktor, the not-prophet of the not-void? Because this will have a knock on effect where Malz will have his story changed if he ever makes an appearance in a show because Viktor stole his entire thematic and ideals. That, but also shouldn't we have gotten VGUs for other characters that changed greatly? Why isn't WW human faced now? Why isn't Jayce a trauma-filled mess? Why does Cait have both her eyes? Either all characters should get Arcane skins, or all characters should be retconned to their arcane versions. Pick one, Riot.
Imagine if he got a more polished look as his base while his Arcane design became his Legendary skin with more effort to actually look like what we saw in Arcane. Things could have been perfect
6:30 Not necessarily. The main issue that I've voiced, and a not insignificant amount of Viktor mains as well, is that his whole identity of a DIY techmage was erased for a Malz clone. A skin based on his Arcane version, instead of an Arcane-based overhaul, would have averted the outrage. Not a legacy skin
Yes I agree with this fully, I think the new viktor looks cool, but I don’t think they need to replace old viktor. I’m not a viktor main but I was an Aatrox main and jungled him before the change and that sucked
They coulda kept him as a cyborg twink. The frail chronically ill man turning to transhumanism to fix his problems - the contrast between sickly flesh and sturdy steel yadda yadda - it definitely could have WORKED.
@@cadunkus I'm on Necrits side tbh, I love both versions of viktor and it sucks that one had to go for the other to stay, but that doesn't really mean the new one is horrendous the way many push it. I think on a design philosphy the thing I agreed with most that people were complaining about is that Viktors uniqueness standing as a mage is completely removed, they made him sleek, more aetherial to stick with the "Mage carry" aesthetic wherein old Viktor was removing that mold and being more bulky and rough and not as slender. Just a very unfortunate situation for this champion.
@@AeroViroalso agreed, i like the new one, i think the old design is really basic, hes just a robot guy, but i understand people liked it, but all this overincesant complaining about the new design is SO ANOYING, I GET IT, YOU DONT LIKE IT, but im atill fine with people not liking it, but i personally love it
They took Viktor lore and appearance, but left his kit the same... It's not an update for arcane viewers bc they don't get skills as seen in show. It's not an update for old players bc the show contradicts with old character lore (the whole lost machine-cyborg design). Most acrane viewers don't even play lol, but they still decided to delete old Viktor for some reason. I really hope they will release classic skin for him. (With some deleted phrases that are connected to the arcane and old phrases implemented).
4% pickrate in a game with 150+ champions is actually quite high though. Riot August talks about this very point, that these low seeming numbers are taken out of proportion because people only look at the tippy top highest popularity.
He was still a champ you almost never saw in game, for the overwhelming majority of players. So people can him and haw over percentages or liking new viktor, but none of that changes the fact bro was almost never played and you rarely saw him before, and now that has changed - a lot. I've been playing this game for about 7 years and I could count how many times I played with or against a Viktor, on one hand. I'm not kidding you. And that's through multiple elos.
@@AmberSweetPea Depends on how strong he was. He was very popular in season 9 and a I think 2 seasons ago. But he was never good since then, so you didn't see him a lot. Saw him a ton back then in High diamond-low master
If Viktor literally just welded metal robot parts onto his metal body after jayce shot him, he could have looked almost identical and I think people would have been satisfied
Ah yes. We can't keep Viktor's old look because it's too generic and fits too many existing characters in media. Let's make him a Cult Wizard instead. That breaks the mold. And definitely doesn't fall right into another one. The reason people were upset over the Viktor change is because they went from stronk russian man, to foot fetish femboy. And they literally did a 180 on the actual character, where he used to be all about using mechanical ingenuity to solve people's problems in the place of magic... to... just using magic. Like the whole point of his character was 'We don't need magic, we have glorious mechanical evolution'. Now he's like 'We need magic, mechanical evolution isn't enough'. Like, how is he a 'Herald of the Arcane'... in a world filled with mages capable of wielding the Arcane. He's the 'Herald' of something that at this point, has existed longer than history and is a known thing in the world. Imagine if they said 'We need to completely redo Braum's character because there are so many 'strong muscular nice guys' out there. Let's make him thin, weak, hates the cold, and he's broody and angry because he never does anything right. On the note of Aatrox's old character... yeah, you could 1v1 dragon the moment it spawned lol.
To add to this, they literally changed Victors lore to Malzahars. Prodigy in his field has a life-changing encounter with an otherworldly magical entity that forever changes them and their world view
as an Illaoi main if riot ever use their twinkification beam on my priestess because of the same reasons, they will not hear the end of it, even if i only play league to get my victorious skin only.
They wouldn't do that cus of the backlash from people saying " male gaze " and what not they could turn her bisexual or lesbian to appeal to the masses tho
Necrit, H O N E Y, you must not play league anymore and this must be AI if you really think no other community would do that type of document. Have you met Lux players???? Lux, Sera, Ahri, and a few other communities are so massively passionate about their champs that they'd not only do that type of document, they'd add color, graphics, coding, and a whole damn website link to it! They'd probably create whole documentaries on YT with original songs too LOLOL. -- And before anyone says "yeah well why didn't Ahri players do that before?" That's a false equivalency, the Ahri drama was just one skin. Riot wasn't changing her entire look, lore, and every skin. It wasn't like she was going from a cute fox girl to an trollish edgy looking tomboy with ears on a headband. My point is, if they did to Lux, Sera, Ahri, Ez, Yasuo/Yone, etc., what they did to Viktor, I guarantee you those communities would blow that document out of the water, they're THAT passionate about their champs.
After the initial response of "ew, I hate new Viktor he ugly and not cool", I got to the stage of actually critically thinking and to me it's really just the execution of the new Viktor. I think thematically his kit doesn't really make sense for him, and at this point why does he have a third arm, it's a reference to a champion that doesn't exist and has no reason to exist in Arcane beyond being a reference to nothing.
How is that critical thinking? Viktor's design is quite ugly especially the in-game model. You are like:"I looked into it and concluded that the design doesn't make sense".
Viktor mains crying about Viktor, meanwhile Blitzcrank is basically written out of the lore and Blitz mains are just like "beep boop i'm a robot teehee".
If you bought a shirt that you really liked, then one day went to your closet and it was replaced with a pair of pants with a note "hey we wanted to change the product to something else", you'd be pretty pissed too right? I'm not even a Victor player but like people paid into something and Riot completely changed it to the point where they don't resemble the original anymore. The quality of the new is irrelevant, if I pay for a cosmetic item it should stay the damn thing I paid for in the first place
As an Ekko main since when I was young I feel like Im actually going through something similar. Ekko's original design represented a smart kid that got into trouble for what he thought was right, but also had the ingenuity and skills to achieve the impossible the first time, every time. Arcane Ekko's changes are more subtle, but there isn't much talk about the Lost Children of Zaun or what he did until he was much older in Arcane, he didn't even have the Z-Drive until Act 3 which makes the awesome game and lore from Convergence questionable. His short stories when he released were heartbreaking and inspiring, detailing the lengths he'd go through for the people he loved, and how his mistakes forged his personality and philosophy. And, although it's something of a small nitpick, they redesigned Ekko's hair to have dreads. I think the design's nice enough, but his old crazy mohawk actually had a purpose with his character, which is that Ekko, along with the other Lost Kids and the majority of Zaun itself, was heavily themed off of Punk Rock, and his mohawk was supposed to be a nod to that. His dance in game is him strumming air guitar with his Minute Hand Bat, and his unleveled LoR card is him doing the same. It just had me a but worried because when Riot released all the official champion icons in the store, they gave Ekko dreads instead if his mohawk! I know the changes aren't as drastic as Viktor, but as a kid I looked up to and saw a lot of myself in Ekko, so I can't help but see all the differences in the character I love. I don't hate his minor redesign, I just hope that a lot of his original design philosophy isn't lost, as I think a lot of the champion designers that were around when he was created, is most likely not working there anymore. Matt Dunn, being the writer of his story along with others like Kindred, being an example of who was lost. I like the Boy Saviour, but I also miss the Boy Who Shattered Time. Please don't forget him Riot!
Because the core fantasy of Skarner was "be scorpion, go fast, ult people." So they made him a scorpion that goes fast and ults people better. There was also the whole capture point thing but they said they tried very hard to include it, they just couldn't make it both balanced and fun.
@@opossums-will-sing Actually, it was crystal scorpion. His core fantasy was changed substantially, also the current Skarner is meant to be specifically tanky and not fast moving.
Turns out if you keep a character underpowered for years to balance him around proplay, the pickrate is going to be low. It also turns out, that if you intentionally overtune a character massively, people will pick him up as a flavor of the month pick.
Arcane should've never been canon, just like how the MCU isn't canon to Marvel Comics or atleast the main story. I was disappointed how they forcefully changed Viktor's look and aesthetic just to match the show instead of just revamping him.
Necrit argument falls flat when you remember viktor got mega buffed alongside his visuals, makes you wonder if that's on purpose....it is a super big blunder to just forget this detail
The rework should have tried something new with THE EXISTING character instead of just completely throwing away the old one. I would have been totally okay if they modernized the Machine Herald to be more visually appealing, but without changing his whole visual design/theme. For all the people who say "He was just knock off Dr Doom" YES THATS WHAT WE LIKE ABOUT HIM!!! Imagine the backlash if they changed Wukong to not just be "Son Wukong from Journey to the West" it's literally the appeal and core of the character, and to change not just the look, but also throw away ALL the lore is disgusting as well.
What do you mean "average pick percentage". That's not a variable, it only depends on the number of characters (for drafts at least) There are 169 champions as of today, 10 of which are picked every game. No matter what champions are or aren't picked, the average will stay the same (that's what average is) That's an average pickrate of 100/169x10=5.9%
I think you forgot to mentioned that Riot also just overbuffed Viktor to the moon right on his "rework" patch and just now finally nerf him in the current mid patch.
Riot manufactoring consent
i hope they will nerf him into oblivion so i won’t longer see him in every game on every lane
saying this as a viktor main
mention*
he doesnt actually play the game.
@@VocalSynthUtaulike a normal person should
I think u missed the fact that Viktor got overbuffed with the release of VGU, which i would say is the main reason his playrate is so high. He went from one of the worst midlaners, to almost 50% ban rate, literally strongest midlaner in the game, one of the strongest adcs, and a decent toplaner.
visually he was great, i stoped playing him because he was too hard while being weak
yea, surprise surprise making his ult NOT suck made him more fun to play, who would've guessed?
i've been bitching about how underwhelming his ult has been since they removed the silence from it lol
Sure they overbuffed him, but he wasn't weak before. His main problem is that he didn't fit into the meta, getting steamrolled in mid game by champs with stronger sidelane and more wake clear, champs like Yone and Aurora.
Yeah he is overbuffed which bringed ppl to him and some of them might stay with him nkw plus arcane boom even tho is over, viktor still has this arcane aura over his head and will have for like half a year. But yeah him being the best champion in a game explains more than enough😂
Absolutely, it felt a bit disingenuous from Necrit to omit that fact entirely. As if pick rate is purely based on the appeal of the character and not on how powerful they actually are ingame. When Smolder had an almost 60% winrate it certainly wasn't his design that made people pick him either.
League players and unsuccessful boycotts are becoming an iconic duo.
Any boycott going against anything Chinese generally doesnt go the best.....
Riot and their chinese masters can just play deaf and ignore everything anf everyone, it has worked and will always lmao
Cause 98% of the player base doesn’t care. The loud minority are… loud, but that’s it.
youtube and reddit will always be the loud minority
Literally all lol’s boycott die after 1-2 weeks since everyone just collectively forgot about it.
He exploded in pick rate because they hella buffed him. His ban rate probably increased by a similar magnitude, and that obviously has nothing to do with the visual update.
Nah the spike and Arcane " obviously has nothing to do with the visual update" pop on popularity.
Everyone was coming to play it for the amazing buff of a new ult efect and a few number changes that even the pros and the top 1 victor main said that it was cool but nothing suprising and just make him from trash to playable.
@@TheLastGhostLegendario why does he have a 44 percent ban rate then if it has nothing to do with him being op.
I forgot he existed before the vgu, so did most casuals.
It's 100% because he's good again. Viktor has been on and off hitting 15-20% payrate whenever he's considered strong. There would of been a jump either way with the remodel but people are still playing him because he's good again.
@@TheLastGhostLegendario he never was trash
7:55 Legends of Runeterra Viktor didn't borg anyone against their will, all his companion cards willingly sought out Viktor's augments. He tries to convince them to borg *more* but they're content with a robot arm or metal chassis.
Personally I think it's the best Viktor. He's passionate about his glorious evolution and easily morally grey.
Isnt it just old Vctor?
And a perfect evolution of the LoL design, err the old LoL design.
DONT KYS
@@expepem189xl3 no the older Viktor is just a bad guy
but what's the reasoning around his lvl 2 card art showing him robbing a bank with his pals? Claiming from Piltover what is rightfully Zaun's?
What makes this 10 times funnier is how Jinx, Vi, Jayce and other characters from Arcane did not get a visual update to represent their new lore. They did get new skins but if you pick regular Jinx it feels like a totally different person than Arcane Jinx. They could've done the same with Viktor while still making a VGU.
Ye, they all should've and hopefully eventually still will get ASUs at the very least.
Sadly making the Arcane skins creates a problem, where giving ASUs to those champs becomes counterproductive
If they were to turn Jinx into the way she's in Arcane, they would basically be throwing the 200$ skin in the trash and I can't imagine how riot would do that
hell even Singed got a skin but not a VGU
Imo this never made sense. The old visual should have been a legacy skin people get for free if they claim it and the skin should have been the new base model.
Jinx feels the same on every skin 😂
Yeah they thought it's safe cause nobody played viktor, jinx vi and jayce have a higher pick rate
the playrate is so high not because of design but because they giga overbuffed him and he's fking strong now
Manufacturing Consent
Necrit pointed out that Pros do not see any substantial increase in his playability that would result in higher play rates. Meaning its the same kit, and as Necrit pointed out its purely from the VGU and Arcane.
@@michaelgrable7053 okay? pro scene doesn't dictate why play rate of something is high and low. plus plenty of pro's are saying nerf viktor jankos for instance calls viktor op everygame he's in and viktor has a perma pick or ban rate up there as well so pretty sure they already back paddled what you just said. his playabilty might not be better because the kit didn't change but what riot did change are his numbers that are way way too high due to the arcane buffs so now he's op hence why the playrate is high.
Except they didn't over buff him at all. They made his ult not fucking ass and that was it.
@@kyubikitsunae3987 "that was it" lmao did you not see the full page of stat increases on all his abilties in the patch notes? he already got a hotfix nerf after that but it still isn't enough even that's how much they added.
8:29 OMG FINALLY SOMEONE THAT NOTICES he looks absolutely nothing like the show, in ANY of his versions, like all of them look so different from eachother im not even sure they checked them side by side
I think everyone noticed that
It was noticeable since the beginning. Viktor's model from arcane differs a lot from both the lol model and the splashart
Skyen? Nickyboi? No? ok
Yeah, same goes for Warwick's face.
@@firesong7825The one in the game might be the current Warwick since Arcane is roughly 10 years in the past from the present day in the lore 🤔.
i mean obviously the pick rate is higher now they turbo buffed him lol
Nah he also looks much much much cooler.
@@spivotz yeah and that doesn't matter, most ppl choose a champ for gameplay, look at old asol, he has a very cool base skin but no1 played him
They also admitted his W was not working properly pre rework.
@@lefcso no some people like a champ and learn it's kit even if they don't like the gameplay.
That happens a lot.
@@spivotz yeah some but not most
Im more upset that they had AMAZING concept art for Viktors transformation in the show, a concept that WAS the best of both worlds AND liked by Viktor fans new and old. There was so much potential for this but Riot themself alongside the remaining show writers seemed to be in an Echo Chamber of their own. VGUs have to and should be made with transparency. Nevermind the fact that alot of Viktor mains were also rightfully worried that theyve set the stage for this happening to ANY CHAMPION THATS DIFFERENT IN A NEW RIOT SHOW.
I can't wait for Gragas' fitness arc where he gives up drinking and becomes a protein guzzling nice guy with abs
I didn't have great success finding the concept art, is it the art from the artbook that you are talking about or something I was unable to find?
Good
You love Banana, they take banana. They replace banana with an apple, you don't like apple. But both are sweet? Same same. Despair...
this pear?
This banana ? 🍒🍌
but my apple is sour
what if the banana, LOOKS like an apple. but TASTES like a banana
@@andrewmcalpine2522 still not apple. I want banana, not apple that taste like banana.
For the Warhammer nerds here, it went from Mechanicus to Psyker.
From an underground inventor with a subtle following, to a cult leader.
But d9nt the adeptus mechanicus have, pycicers
From a devoted follower of the Omnissiah, to, quite frankly, a heretic since he is now a cult leader.
Old viktor was also a cult leader right? For pretty much the same reason they loved him in part 2 of season 2, he was helping people in zuan and got a reputation but with more mech magic than "touch your face to reshape you" magic.
@@BlinksTehShit Ish?
Closer to a revolutionist than a cultist in most stories.
@@BlinksTehShitkinda, Viktor didn't care to lead a cult or force anything. He just helped people and people built a cult around him cuz of it (at least for og Viktor).
I don’t think Viktor being too much like Doom is that big of a flaw. Gangplank is literally just a pirate but they didn’t break the mold that drastically with his design and lore. They should’ve just updated the Machine Herald instead of replacing it with Malzahar 2.0
this
yeah i agree
I am so tired of dr doom comparison. Even Jhin is more of a dr Doom design, nobody cares about that
And Ahri is a kitsune 1 : 1, pantheon *was* just a spartan, amumu is just a mummy, nasus is just an anubis etc, doesn't mean they should become some other characters if they become a part of a popular show in which the author decided to make ahri a cat girl or something
And worst of all is that when Malzahar gets ASU, he will surely be better than Viktor in every way except maybe he wasn't featured in any media, and we will have basically 2 of the same character
Viktor is literally doom 😂 not even and inspiration just a ripoff
@@pandaescarlate7268 Bro you have no idea what you're talking about doom is a whole massively complex character, they look similar but everything else is different
Considering how many champs there are 4% it's nothing to sneeze at. We're not talking about a fraction, that's a whole number. There are lots of champs that would dream about having a 4% pick rate.
Naafiri
Right? Like... someone check in on Quinn Mains, they'd kill for 4% pick rate.
I hate to be that guy, but 4% is a fraction and not a whole number 🛀
true champs like Vi Jayce Ekko sits in 4% or less is kinda the average for no giga popular champs like Jinx, Miss fortune, etc
@@jorgechi4627 lmao, your higher level math nitpick has no power here.
A 4% pickrate is totally fine. It puts you about right in the middle of the pack for the 160 champs we have. The rework just feels like they wanted to integrate something from the show into League that wouldn't be a skin, without really thinking about how not every League player is also an Arcane fan. His old design wasn't even dated on a conceptual level, he just needed visual adjustments because his model was old. Instead they made him an Eldritch Abomination even though his old concept was totally fine. The only thing good about the VGU is that he feels much smoother to play while keeping his gameplay feel the same in terms of how you approach him.
The champion number 80 on pickrate (aurora) is just below 5% pickrate (4.98) and the champion 103 (riven) is just below 4% (3.97) so yeah, 4% is close to the average
Tbh he feels completely teribble to play in my eyes. I hate this new Q animations, I hate his W and I could go on. Some things are harder to see, some things feel bad to use and the design is horibble
@@forhyrule8428 Then you are rather on the small side. He is pretty broken right now and his ban-rate is insanely high for a mid laner. He is #4 of all played champions with 19% pick rate and has the highest ban rate with 44%.
But chmapion feeling is different. You may not like to play with him.
the Viktor mains Riot supposedly said they took feedback from is a blatant lie. If you ask any Viktor main about what is the one thing he needs to be changed the most, then the answer would be most of the time, his kit and especially his W. Riot didn't care a shit about what we wanted to see
You are wrong
@@marquisepixley684 And you aren't?
It's not that VGU worked - it's that Arcane worked.
If Viktor in arcane went hexcore upgrades by machinery like in original lore, and kept the original "vibe" - the pickrates would still be the same, or even higher cuz original 4% would continue to pick him.
The notion that VGU worked is a fallacy.
This 💯💯💯💯
Oh honey bless your heart lmao.
100% This one. In season 1 everybody saw that Viktor was not healthy. Those who knew about OG Viktors story just wanted to see how he becomes the machine herald and not some arcane alien abomination. We wanted to see Cyborg Hextech Jesus dammit.
5:43 That's actually a lie. Riot stated that they asked a bunch of Viktor mains about the new spells, but not a single Viktor main was actually asked about the changes. There was a big Reddit thread about that situation.
A main is someone that spends their time pushing matches in Challenger, not dudes that can't get out of Gold and post on Reddit groups for Champion mains, get real buddy.
@ Tell that to viktor otp streamers who are in fact pushing challenger. And yes, riot never reached them, only after the backlash but it was too late by then so they just buffed him buddy
Do we have any fact check on this or the Subrredit is just saying "They didn't pick me so they did not questioning what so over"
THERE STILL NO VIKTOR MAIN IDENTIFIED FROM THE VIKTOR MAIN SUB, NOT A SINGLE ONE, THAT WAS ASKED ABOUT THE VGU
I wasn't a main Viktor but I'm kinda sad that my cyborg buddy is now a metallic skeleton. I like me men with some flesh !
Metallic flesh?😭 @@974cerebrate
And as we know the viktor subreddit is the only place on earth where viktor mains live
I swear redditors need to realize they're a minority
Keep crying lol
@@xhantTheFirst but it is where most mains live
20:29 It's like when Andy replaces Woody with Buzz because he's shiny and new. All the Viktor mains feel like Woody.
"You got a friend in me"
14:32 You forgot to mention one crucial point: They made Viktor insanely op and what happens when a champion suddenly becomes really strong? Exactly, they get abused a lot. The moment Viktor gets as strong as before the rework, what eventually will happen, his winrate and playrate will both decrease
It's the usual disingenuous corpo talk that every Riot bootlicker uses, use numbers/facts and decore it with lies to gaslight people. Riot August is a master at using this kind of corpo talk.
Even corki with that atrocious design had like 12%+ pick rate with that crazy R build some time last year, new skarner was one of the most picked champions before the nerfs, now hes at 2 - 4%
It's not over, Viktor Mains are working on more community pushback, letters, etc. The letter featured in the video has over 60 long individual letters people wrote to explain what they liked in old Viktor and why, many poured their hearts and souls into that. If anyone glances there they'll see detailed analyses of his lore, visuals, thematic. Nobody would have a problem if Arcane released its character as a new champion, because this simply is not Viktor. He's being played because he's overbuffed.
YES YES YES
It is not going to work . There haven't been a single time where a ASU has been reverted.
The only thing I can see happening is riot making a new skin for victor that is more robot focus . Be he would be still skinny
Ok as viktor main this is also genuinely pathetic the truth is I like the new design at most I ask that they release a classic skin but nothing more all the other requests are ridiculous because to change the new viktor they would also have to change their version of wild rift and that's impossible besides throwing away a lot of work don't be childish and just get over it bro
As one of the main Viktor players who disliked the VGU, we didn’t attempt to boycott the update. Instead, we requested that Riot make a decision. Either commit to developing a new Arcane Viktor or make the “VGU” a skin.
Riot completely removed Viktor’s identity from League of Legends and replaced him with a polished generic mage that resembles Malzahar more closely. As Necrit mentioned, if this champion had been released as a new champion, it would have been incredible. However, this champion isn’t Viktor; it’s a new character that wears Viktor’s staff and third arm to claim that it’s still Viktor.
While his old design was flawed, he had a distinct and unique identity. He simply needed lore refinement and a new approach to his appearance. Christian Linke’s claim that he didn’t meet today’s creative standards when it comes to a champion created 13 years ago makes no sense.
Using his pick rate to claim that the VGU was a “success” is absurd because let’s see how it performs in a month. In just three weeks, the pick rate has dropped by 50%. The 3% pick rate he had before the rework is not “unpopular” by any means, considering we have over 160 champions. A 3% pick rate is quite good. Skarner had a 0.3% pick rate before the rework and now he has a 4-5% pick rate.
Ultimately, a captivating concept was sacrificed for a generic and safe one that fails to bring anything new to the game or the lore. The old Viktor could have been integrated into Arcane, but we ended up with an Avengers Endgame-style ending that made him the villain who forced all the characters to unite against him. In my opinion, this felt weak and poorly executed. His new design has completely lost my appeal as a player, even though the kit remains the same.
I rlly don't understand how ppl think the new design is a generic mage. What other mage does he look like?
@conniefan123 he has a staff, cape, and uses magic.
Old Viktor had 2 out of the 3 and instead of using magic he used his inventions. There are only a few champs that use their inventions that you can count on one hand. But how many mages that use magic while floating around are there in League of Legends.
The approach is generic wizard that does wizard shit. Meanwhile old Viktor was crazy trans-human scientist using his inventions to improve himself and protect himself from dangers in Zaun.
@@HANCOCK_LOL right lol, and most of the other tech but not inventor champions use tech that was made by others, the few inventors I can think of are, Heimer, Ekko, Vik, Jinx, Rumble, Corki, a few but still a small roster when thinking of all leagues champs
@conniefan123 it's his entire vibe as Piltover/Zaun champion, they're supposed to appear as steampunk characters in fantasy world. Now he looks like another resident of Targon.
@@varnix1006 same with seraphine. Take the platform away, and she can easily be a targonian fairy
My opinion is, is that niche champions play a major role in league, since with a roster of over 160 champions, you dont need another champion that is generally good in everything. Very specialized quirky champions absolutely have room in the pool.
B-b-b-but Riot needs the money from popular champs that does everything!
First person with an actual brain I've seen when talking about league balance. Niche champs ( at least on my opinion ) are ALWAYS more fun that objectively stronger / op champs
Damn never thought you'll make a video on this.
I'm not even a Viktor Main and I feel so bad for them as it is similar to the Aatrox rework where a champ lost its identity, whether it was gameplay-wise or lore-wise.
edit: I assume Empathy is hard for some
People...liked old Aatrox? His gameplay looked so ass before his new rekka-style.
@MayorOfEarth79 Even if it was so called ass, changing a champion from being a Basic Attacker to a Ability Caster was criminal.
It would be like reworking Master Yi and making him into a Ability caster
@@MayorOfEarth79 Imagine you mained jinx and then they rework him into ezreal, you'd probably be very disappointed with the rework even if ezreal is a more "modern" design
this is the complete opposite of Aatrox rework, the problem with Aatrox is that his gameplay was aight but his lore was kinda aight too, yet they changed it all, while Viktor had an already cool identity but an atrocious gameplay, and yet they changed both instead of just the onae that was worse
I dont feel bad for them cuz if they had to resort to harass rioters to get their point across then i'm not gonna feel an inch of sympathy
I do think you should've mentioned that when Viktor's VGU released, his numbers were buffed to the point where he was extremely broken, which 100% adds to his increase in playrate.
The same happened when they reworked Skarner, he was extremely strong and as he got weaker and weaker patch by patch, his playrate went down substantially. (And yes I'm still mad that they deleted my main...)
Skarner is still the same, just more functional and less ugly.
Riot just hates fun and nerfed him.
viktor's was a vgu attached to a straight buff
Join the club. I still miss old poppy r. Old sion. Old yorick (that dude really needed a rework. He was kept weak intentionally, but if you didnt run it down early you could still absolutely demolish with him.) Old urgot with the lock on. Old mordekaiser, semi-old mordekaiser😂 (i actually started to like the mordekaiser rework and then they reworked him again). Old shen. Old akali. Old taric (i got a pentakill with old taric top, a game where my team was flaming and trolling because of my troll pick, but i carried that).
With so many champs i liked removed from the game i wonder why i kept playing for aslong as i did
@@x-nimator9997 Hello, pre rework skarner main here poping in to commentate on this take real quick: He is not in fact "still the same" like and subscribe for more info about pre rework skarner!
@@x-nimator9997 "My main champs got nerfed, Riot hates fun!"
What you are failing to disclose is his buffs. You saying there was no gameplay changes is crazy, his passive is now giving more charges on cannon minions which speeds up his evolutions, w got bug fixed and buffed and R grows in size and Q had a early game shield buff... Champ was legit 53% win rate with 25% pick rate for days after release while before he was 49% win rate. Boycott would not be visible on the graph because of how small viktor community is but you can see his pick rate going down before the rework release. People were mostly upset that VIktor went from a cyborg to a Arcane twink. Traditional skin would solve all the issues.
The funniest thing is that they made a completely new character, taking into account the lore and the visual component, but left the old skills and this is what I think for the mains Victor, you kind of understand that this should be a completely new character, but you don’t feel any difference at all, he even laughs like the old Victor It’s completely strange considering what kind of Victor is in Arcane.
We didn’t lost Viktor, we only got a new malzahar
So we also lost old viktor, unless you missed the word "just" before "lose"
We defiantly lost Viktor too with Malzahar slapped over him.
Eh i see it but its also like they only similar if you dont play league.
Malz is pretty clear void purple and from shurima with his rags.
Viktor is pretty clearly technology/fleshy which is most used in zaun or piltover.
Side by side their very much different styles and characters.
The only similarities is the role of prophet.
To which depicts their roles.
Viktor feels like a cult leader.
Malz feels like a npc cultist .
To which yeah is distinct enough
Keep in mind that his pickrate also increased due to him mostly recieving straight up buffs on his entire kit and being overall stronger in lane
That's the only reason why his pick rate increased, He was giga buffed.
Looking at his skins side by side I'm not really convinced many people sought out the new Viktor because he looks cool.
I agree so much with the points people make that now hes just another mage (and we already have lot of those) and how the change of look is so drastic it just doesn't feel the same...as for me I feel sad there's not so many robotic themes on league and now with viktor Being so different,not only Blitz isn't cannon anymore but everything just feels full of mages now
Blitz is still canon, Viktor even references him in voice lines.
Blitzcrank is still canon though.
@@x-nimator9997 Nah, Arcane is canon and he's not in arcane so he's not canon.
@@TheJamieellis Riot lore division's thought process:
@@TheJamieellis apparently he was going to appear in the second season, but the people at Fortiche thought he was too silly and cut him out
So I choose to believe he's still canon, but it wasn't shown
I just wish that this Viktor was a seperate because hes quite literally not the machine herald and it feels like it clashed with his personality in s1 of Arcane and obviously his old bio. His current bio is so devoid of any actual information and is completely ambiguous. (Netcrit make a video on his updated bio pleaseee. the theories could be wild)
That's just their way of cementing Arcane as main canon lore, it's not the first time they do retcons without asking people's opinions
Doing so would spoil Arcane because it would confirm whether Jayce and Viktor died or not. (They didn't, Jayce is right there, but the Arcane newbies don't know that)
@@guest_zzroman2076 wait it would confirm there alive? Genuinely im curious how it does cause ive been looking for peices of hope on how they lived- can you explain a little more or are you referencing season 1 after jinx shot the shark?
Main thing bio confirmed is that piltower cowered up what happened to him after the explosion and everything that happened him are basicly considered conspiracy teories, also the nature of his research got cowered up as well.
Also yes they most likely alive and just teleported, the way they disapeared looked similar to how the mage teleported jayce in ep2, and the rune they used is also the one jayce and ekko used for dimention travel.
@hajnahortobagyi690 thats exactly what ive been theorizing so its good to know its not just me- i havent seen many covers on the updated bio cause everyone has been occupied with the skin difference.
Ah yes. The Viktor drama.
Arcane season2!
Big buff boi!
Arcane over
time 2 nerf
Play rate line go down
no body cares anymore
except viktor mains
forced to stare
at abomination
😢
14:15 this entire point is just wrong. Viktor went from being mediocre to one of the strongest characters in the game after the update. That's why he is getting played so much.
Yes i‘d even argue a 4% pick-rate in a game with over 150 champions is above average. There is soo much variety in this game 4% tells me this dude is being played more than many other forgotten champions.
if they just made viktor turn into old viktor in arcane and updated his ingame visuals to match current day standards he wouldve been just as popular if not more...
Yeah I hate how there are people who makes it sound like Viktor only became popular due to his new look as if he wouldn’t have been as popular if Arcane properly showed off original Machine Herald
I just don't get how they clarified his character in legends of runeterra like a year ago, to then entirely throw it away and make a new character
Edit: I just realized that happened in 2020, that was way longer than i thought
Also important to mention that Arcane was supposed to be its own story, not a part of the game cannon.
But the show became to popular, and since than new players are confused from the difference of the game lore and the show lore - so the higher ups at Riot decided to make it, and everything else coming forward to be cannon the same cannon.
@E_D___ which was a really stupid decision. So many champs got screwed over with making arcane canon. So many champs werent even mentioned while they are part of zaun or piltover.
They really shouldve just kept the 2 seperate
@@NTTofMistery No champ was screwed, wtf. Even the not mentioned characters are still completely viable in Arcane's lore. Renata as a new chembaron, Zeri as a Firelight member, Urgot and Mundo are just dudes with a bunch of chems, Blitzcrank is a robot that could've perfectly been made by Viktor offscreen. Like, Blitz wasn't even originally invented by Viktor in his first lore iteration. Its inventor was never an important part of him, and it still isn't.
There is no character screwed by Arcane, unless you think the world ceased to exist after the end of Arcane because Aurelion was grumpy.
@@E_D___ The thing is them also doing that only partially. Like not touching some of cait's traps being yordle traps. Why would cait be trapping yordles with arcane taken into account. And Vi having a bunch of police brutality quotes seem really jarring considering her stuggles in the show
@@frostfrost8907
Camille, Seraphine, Zac & Ezreal
Also how does the Brackern hearts factor into this? I know it was semi-retconned by Skarner’s VGU, but Ezrael, Camille, Seraphine’s voice lines all mention the Hexcores either being straight up Brackern-hearts or having some form of sentience.
And how does Camille factor into this? Game lore Camille has had her Hextech implants for 40+ years (because Jayce didn’t invent them) but in Arcane Hextech is completely new, are they goin to make Camille canonically younger than the cast of Arcane or are they going to have to completely rework her lore too
I hate hte VGU cause the kit doesn't feel like the character we saw in the Show. I want a Rework, not a VGU. Also, the 3rd arm just looks bad, silhouette wise, on his VGU. It feels like it's just there cause they failed to come up with any else.
You are messing up the terms, VGU is a visual and gameplay update, aka, a rework. Viktor was promised a VGU, but in the end, he only got an ASU, aka, an Art and Sustainability Update (with new visuals, and slight changes to W and R).
Even worse. His skins keep the OG rails the arm was on. But they kind of awkwardly shuffle it onto a pauldron or something. So they didn't even have the awareness to just delete the now nonfunctioning element, but just made it into an ugly useless element to his armour.
Yes, the OG design had the 3rd arm on rails so it could move all the way to his chest. No, we don't see it move more than up to his shoulders AFAIK.
The fact they put his third arm in the middle of his back instead of on his shoulder gave me a conniption.
The worst thing? The new design is pretty okay (not a big fan of twinks but whatever. And whatever the fuck the claw is about with the new one.), and I feel like he would've worked kinda well as an antagonist to Viktor.
New Viktor blabbers about the "Glorious Evolution" or whatever, people see his weird ass dolls and go "Oh? Nah fam, I'd rather not become a soulless machine". Like, I dunno, have old Viktor be the mentor to new Viktor - and instead of going the same path, they just have a MASSIVELY different opinion on the topic of Glorious Evolution, ultimately causing them to fall out with each other. Old Viktor only wants to help people that actively request help, while new Viktor forcefully converts each and every single one he comes across - like it is in the show.
I just wish he would've been a bit more...doll-like, like the machine dolls he had in S2.
Well like even here it doesn't make a lot of sense. They could have picked from any kind of Viktor IN THE SHOW. They picked the most alien and arcane looking one, when they could have chosen a different point in the timeline. This form of viktor isn't even the show's most up-to-date form for Viktor, where he looks more human-like. They chose the form for viktor he had for maybe a day?
There's so many issues with this when you keep thinking about it. The design doesn't even match the show's design, the voicelines sound like a different character from the show too (not VA wise though that's also true, but in terms of personality). Glorious Evolution and The Claw and stuff are there simply because Old Viktor had it- but why bother with any of that if you're making ALL NEW VIKTOR?
Everything about new viktor in LOL feels forced and half-assed simultaneously imo.
it wasnt just a visual change, his ultimate - when fully upgraded - gets bigger and bigger while active on champion kills/takedowns and thats acutally a big reason for a higher player count since it gives you lots of happy feelings when you see a massive AoE damage field like a 70+ minutes aurelion sol stars ascend ulti
Yeah, shame that that's not viktor
One change, and that's his ult.
A real VGU would have changed everything else too
that change does nothing still lose to every midlaner in the game XD
@@Shaco. his W is bugfixed and every spell got overbuffed
I wanted to see a Warwick style update. Instead they shot Viktor in the head and hired a new dude that shares his name only.
From an all time Warwick main - realistically Warwick was changed just as much as Viktor.
Warwick's character and vibe and were completely different.
Viktor used to be a cyborg, now he's cyborgy-magic-metal man.
Warwick used to be just a werewolf with metal claws and now he is a chemical werewolf with pipes going all throughout his body.
If you think about it - it's basically the same level of change.
The only difference being that Ww rework was straight up a better design
(But if you ask me that's not really a difference here)
@@dorians2138 WW is still a werewolf, Viktor is not a cyborg anymore, hope that helps. You can jump around a bush and say that he is somewhat metallic or "cyborgy", but he is not a cyborg period.
Sure, ww got a chemical pump and a metal arm, but that is just a nuance to his clearly werewolf character
For Viktor it is the opposite, this is a completely different character with a nuance being "Viktor mains would get mad if they removed the third arm, so they kept it"
Warwick used to be friends with soraka, it's an extremely old story but he was chanaged massively as well, he was a warewolf with a heart of gold but now he's an anti hero pre-arcane and now post acane he's a mindless beast
@@dorians2138 Warwick is still a werewolf, New viktor has nothing mechanical about him, his claw looks more like something a void champion would have, his colors makes him look like something out of Targon, when Ekko explodes his face off, you can't see any cogs, wires or anything remotely mechanical inside him, if just being made of metallic slop is enough to be considered a cyborg, then Mordekaiser is as cyborgy as Viktor.
14:28 Base Stats
Health Growth: 104 ⇒ 100
Armor Growth: 5.2 ⇒ 4.4
There's a reason these changes were hotfixed in
Viktor was overtuned after the buffs they gave him in the "gameplay update" side
My biggest issue with arcane viktor is that one of the writers/directors (i dont remember which) are saying that both Viktor and Jayce are just straight up dead. Leaving no room for the ambiguous fate the show left us with. Never mind "the arcane" has already shown the potential to transcend time and space, just dead. My second biggest issue is the design they ended up using for his league model. It barely resembles the one from the show other than looking gaunt.
Personally, i wish that arcane stayed as a side-canon thing, rather than becoming mainline, but i feel that sentiment is not uncommon. Arcane is great, but it changes a little too much from what was already established. Arcane Viktor could have been an awesome legendary skin, and even if his base model stayed the machine herald, the laser arm would have felt. Hell, make it an ultimate skin and allow him to shift between arcane herald and arcane celestial. Sadly we didnt get that. I was never a huge Viktor player, I dont really have a main, but i did enjoy his kit and design. He was one of the first champs to release after i joined league, having joined between volibear and ahri's release, so I do have that little bit of connection with his old design.
You put some respect on old Trundles name, his replacement is about as bad as Viktors. The old lore trolls had great regeneration powers, but also had a curse on them that caused their skin to melt away. Their healing was enough to prolong their lives long enough to reproduce, but they lived in constant pain and had to deal with their bodies decaying at an accelerated rate while they were still alive. Trundle was born with regeneration so powerful that it looked like he didnt have the curse at all, though he did. Rather than enjoy the benefits of his mutation however, he allowed a Shaman to put the curse of all his people onto him alone. The entire races curses together are enough to exactly match his insane regeneration, so he ended up in a constant state of his flesh falling off him and regenerating back just as fast, leaving him a horrible monster in constant pain, but the rest of his race got to live normal lives free of the curse.
New Trundle found a big stick made of special ice and declared himself king. The rest of the trolls dont agree.
The reasoning behind Trundle's retcon is asinine in hindsight. Rito said it was to cut down on the amount of factions and make the lore more cohesive, but look at League now and we've since gotten an entire new City-State with Ixtal, all the other locations have been been split more and more into different factions, and the lore itself is still just as much of a mess if not more so.
I love goofy ass current Trundle, but holly shit that is fucking metal. Makes him really fucking cool as a character choosing to accept everyone's agony onto himself just so the rest of his people can live.
Outside the fact hes a stickman with features i just hate that the og lore is gone... Victor had my favourite short story
His short story is underated as hell. It has so many interpretations as to what where his true intentions with the kid and sets him up so well for future stories that never came...
Hilariusly enought, his bio still links to it.
@hajnahortobagyi690 i hadn't checked but I was certain it would lol... On a more important note I'd not addressed though wth is the point of his third arm now? I like that they at least tried to improve the skins some but what's the point of his third arm? Unless he had it in part 2 for some reason I've not watched it yet really didn't like Viktor from the first part (I'm also super broke)
@@Chris-cf6ul they kinda imply he does magic with it? Like this is how he casts spells. But why it looks like the laser he built and why it needs to fire a laser makes 0 sence. Its not even there cuz he melted his laser into himself, he just magicly grows it out of his back for no real reason.
Viktor went from a cool mechanicus tech-priest to a heretic newly recruited adept
And it was all going so well at the end of Arcane S1.
Everything was set up for Viktor to get possesed by the arcane-turned-void-crystal, for Ryze to appear and enlist the help of Donger and Jayce to defeat him, for Victor to get completely crushed and become despised yet made self-aware again, for him to scuttle into Zaun and back to Singed only to reject his cynicism and in a sudden brink of inspiration find a new path. For him to still reject humanity and become yet another monster of Zaun, but one people would respect, not fear. For him to ally with Noxus only to betray them spectacularly and announce to the world his plan for The Glorious Evolution...
But I live in this timeline instead.
The thing that irks me especially is that new Viktor is just Lissandra with a TV show telling his story. A disable mage doing unspeakable harm in the name of the greater good, that's just Lissandra.
When your description is so vague it can be Swain too maybe they're not *that* similar?
@xhantTheFirst I guess I forgot to add the fact that both Viktor and Lissandra thought it would be best to let the world be invaded by an extradimensional dubiously sentient entity with a grudge against reality that wants to consume all life as we know it, only to stop it at the last second and prevent its entry into Runeterra.
I don't know how I forgot to write that while considering it for what I was writing
@xhantTheFirst First of all, saying that there's a THIRD character this new Viktor is like when previous Viktor was similar to *none* isn't a point in new Viktor's favour.
Second, I was considering, but forgot to write, the whole "They wanted to let an extradimensional dubiously sentient entity invade Runeterra to further their goals, but said entity had a grudge on all life and was hellbent on destroying it so they did a 180 and prevented it from entering reality." angle.
Like, the only material difference is that Lissandra lived on and became a warden for the Void while Viktor was fucking vaporised and effectively died (until that is retconned too or they decide they want him and Jayce back)
My only real gripe is because Viktor’s kit is basically the same, with just a small change to his Ult and passive, it’s more like a glorified Arcane ASU not a full fledged VGU
and you can thank the highest elo victor mains that cried about the new kit they tested so they reverted it
@ dang, would’ve been cool to see what Riot could’ve done
one thing that should be mentioned regarding playrate and ban rate is that he got buffed in nearly all abilities the patch the remake came out so probably most ppl are just abusing him cause hes strong if not broken
I want to thank the Viktor VGU and Arcane Season two.
Finally broke my LoL addiction of 14 years.
SAMMMME
SAAAAME
Congratulations for getting out of the trenches, fellow Pomudachi
Same
Cry about it.
I wouldn't be surprised if Riot told this guy to hold the Viktor video for next month, to reduce backlash from more people knowing what was going on
Bro sold his soul to riot 😢
Beyond a shadow of a doubt.
5:43, I meeeeean technically one thing did.
His W can finally stun properly. They said there was a bug they never fixed and were aware of and just… finally made his stun useful 😂 So the change there was… his W is not a worthless ability anymore!
Worst part is whatever they did boosted his winrates to the stratosphere so that was another reason his playrates increased. Dunno if it'll continue sticking that high if his numbers get brought down cause of it.
@@BunnyTheOverlord They just over buffed him. He is getting nerfed again/
We lost more than just Blitz. Unless Riot's planning to retcon Arcane that is. You know, with the whole, "omg, hextech is actually bad and will corrupt and kills us all!"
So like... every champion touched by Hextech is just going to have to get erased or retconned.
how come dota & heroes of newerth don't suffer from retconned yet only riot coastally changes their lore
i guess by arcane logic
something like " evil " doesn't exist just ignore every other war crime from the lol universe
@@chaosmachines934Dota's lore barely exists and very few characters have anything to do with more than one or two others, so there's no real need to retcon anything. I don't know enough about HoN to comment.
@@opossums-will-sing this is bad game design if you have to retconned you own game lore..
I would like to call this "The Arcane tourist effect"
Problems really started to arise when the person who is reimagining the character saw no value in the old one.
Making arcane canon was a mistake, and viktor was unfortunate enough to be the worst casualty of it.
Being replaced by a character who was a rushed mess in the series and can not even be really improved cuz he is gone for the foreseeable future. Not to mention the whole abandoning the characters core and him now being represented by some one who existed for about... half a day.
Making arcane canon was the mistake
Herald Viktor literally being dead in lore after a day of his change is hilariously bad
@@yagnenttv yeah, i dont think peapole talk enought abaut how funny it is that now a champions main representation in game is one that bearly existed for half a day and spoke like... 10 half baked voice lines all together.
I do think they will use him as a multiverse treath or a raid boss for the mmo or some bs but for now, its just some random wierdo who existed for a day. I dont even think folks who wached the show really care abaut him either, why would they?
@@ignacioperez5479 yeah thats what i wanted to say i just didnt notice the canon part was missing.
The old Trundle is a REALLY REALLY GOOD BOI.
Trundle had one of the most metal AF, yet heartwarming pieces of lore right there.
Old Trundle was one goated mf.
LOR viktor was by far the best in visual and lore design, BY FAR
+ league design far better than arcane design. Arcane viktor final form just looks disgusting let's be honest, the split face thing is the stupidest sh*t I've ever witnessed visually
@@witcherpieim curius, why do you think that?
Craziest part that it's not just the mask that looks different, in general, LoL Viktor looks like a weird fusion of Arcane Viktor and Old Viktor, not pleasing fans of both lol
In the show, Viktor is a weird, shriveled up, alien thing, in the game Viktor is some high fantasy mage twink
Everyone has this opinion and mee too, I hope they rework him kitwise(and his mask in the OG one to be like arcanes) being in half ground is a bad idea.
Well necrit just does not play league anymore so its not a suprise
Viktor numbers are partly VGU but he has absurd pickrate cause he is like top S tier midlaner since VGU
They should have just done a VGU focusing on classic viktor and released an arcane viktor skin.
They're trying to make a cohesive canon and the character changed too much to stay the default.
@@firesong7825
If they were doing that they shouldn't have fired the s1 writer
@@firesong7825 question is…why they could not stay with old robot like design and make it canon with arcane just letting Viktor build the mold for his armor and then let Singed use it as a tool to bring Viktor back to life after Jayce attack? It would be way more fun that this weird ass transformation to this bio godlike being?
@@alus992 right? lol
"they're trying to make a cohesive canon..." they could start by not changing things that heavilly, then it wouldnt that hard to keep both league and arcane cohesive lmao, also if they went the robot line it would make more sense for piltover in general
also WW, it would work wonders for WW transformation, instead of whatever that thing in the finale was
@@firesong7825and Warwick? Ekko threw away his Z-drive, why does he have it in game?
The cohesive canon is a lie
As a Blitz main, yeah losing Viktor Dad is really sad
love how necrit doesn't mention the lore issues, totally not shilling for riot
You are overseeing one thing why Viktor is so much more popular than before rework. It was buffed to hell together with VGU, to the point it’s a really good peek in 3 different roles.
I don’t dismiss that new Viktor may have some appeal visually to certain people, but if any champion is in such a broken state its play rate spikes drastically.
On the VGU note, it’s ok that Viktor is not my cup of tea anymore (although I’m really sad, but I understand why rito is doing that). But what to do with all the cosmetics I’ve got over the years for this champ? Now I own a pile of crap which doesn’t look like anything I bought, and I feel scammed.
4% pickrate is a pretty ok pickrate, tho? There are more than 160 champions
Below average.
@@TheLastGhostLegendario there are thing above and below average. Thats whx it is the average. Should every single character that is below average in pickrate be reworked?
Rito should offer refunds to the skins purchased before the VGU. The fact that a company can degrade the quality of virtual cosmetics-at any time-without facing consequences and simultaneously being immune to class-action lawsuits due to the ToS to access the product is deeply concerning and extremely consumer unfriendly.
Hell no.
@@nocoffeenofun Hell yeah. They sold you something different for what you have now. It should be illegal to do that.
@@Gunther69420 Nah I got what I want.
TLDR; Give Viktor mains a Traditional skin that looks like the LoR rendition of Viktor and everyone will Chillax
Literally. So many people talk about making his VGU a skin instead, but why aren’t we talking about just making his old design a traditional skin
@@josephdiscavage2709 making his vgu a skin still would be better and more consistence with how other caraters where handeled since it wouldnt delete the machine herald from the game. But yeah, its kinda ridiculus voliber got a free skin for a non existent version of his rework, and they didnt even bothered making a traditinal viktor skin after completely eareasing him
Untrue. Viktor mains will always find something to complain about.
No skin compensation would ever help
For me, my big hate for New Viktor is that it is quite literally just Malzahar. Prodigy in his field has a life-changing encounter with an otherworldly magical entity that forever changes them and their world view. He realises that individuality is a curse and that only via the destruction of the self can we achieve true freedom from pain and suffering as they are constants otherwise. He brings these new teachings to people and forms a cult, hoping to even further spread the word of his beliefs and converting people... sometimes by force. Who am i talking about here, Malzahar, the prophet of the void or Viktor, the not-prophet of the not-void? Because this will have a knock on effect where Malz will have his story changed if he ever makes an appearance in a show because Viktor stole his entire thematic and ideals.
That, but also shouldn't we have gotten VGUs for other characters that changed greatly? Why isn't WW human faced now? Why isn't Jayce a trauma-filled mess? Why does Cait have both her eyes? Either all characters should get Arcane skins, or all characters should be retconned to their arcane versions. Pick one, Riot.
This wouldn't have been a problem if they just use the LOR design instead of the arcane garbage
Imagine if he got a more polished look as his base while his Arcane design became his Legendary skin with more effort to actually look like what we saw in Arcane.
Things could have been perfect
@@WoodSageSeaSalt I would've like that
Hellll no, I love his new design.
@@nocoffeenofun good for you
@@johnstrife7 Thank you it is good for me 😊
The problem is that they transformed a well made character lorewise who fits perfectly in Zaun to a Xolaani 2.0
Plus, dr doom is not a bad concept to emulate, jinx is often referred as a harley queen for league
Old Viktor used a mix mash of gadgets he made himself.
New Viktor is just a mage
the skinchanger with old skins for viktor looks mighty good right now
Kinda worried about that being bannable by some dumb ruling, but seems like a good workaround
@@qubguy well, i use some old champions models, havent had a issue yet, although I did not try with Vik
The only time I've seen old Viktor mains and new Viktor mains get along is when the new ones ask tips for how to play Viktor
6:30 Not necessarily. The main issue that I've voiced, and a not insignificant amount of Viktor mains as well, is that his whole identity of a DIY techmage was erased for a Malz clone. A skin based on his Arcane version, instead of an Arcane-based overhaul, would have averted the outrage. Not a legacy skin
Yes I agree with this fully, I think the new viktor looks cool, but I don’t think they need to replace old viktor. I’m not a viktor main but I was an Aatrox main and jungled him before the change and that sucked
I'm crying, scientific term "twinkification" LMAO
They nerfed his muscle :( From daddy to twink, very sad
They coulda kept him as a cyborg twink. The frail chronically ill man turning to transhumanism to fix his problems - the contrast between sickly flesh and sturdy steel yadda yadda - it definitely could have WORKED.
@@cadunkus I'm on Necrits side tbh, I love both versions of viktor and it sucks that one had to go for the other to stay, but that doesn't really mean the new one is horrendous the way many push it. I think on a design philosphy the thing I agreed with most that people were complaining about is that Viktors uniqueness standing as a mage is completely removed, they made him sleek, more aetherial to stick with the "Mage carry" aesthetic wherein old Viktor was removing that mold and being more bulky and rough and not as slender. Just a very unfortunate situation for this champion.
YOO SHENPAI @@AeroViro
@@AeroViroalso agreed, i like the new one, i think the old design is really basic, hes just a robot guy, but i understand people liked it, but all this overincesant complaining about the new design is SO ANOYING, I GET IT, YOU DONT LIKE IT, but im atill fine with people not liking it, but i personally love it
They took Viktor lore and appearance, but left his kit the same... It's not an update for arcane viewers bc they don't get skills as seen in show. It's not an update for old players bc the show contradicts with old character lore (the whole lost machine-cyborg design).
Most acrane viewers don't even play lol, but they still decided to delete old Viktor for some reason.
I really hope they will release classic skin for him. (With some deleted phrases that are connected to the arcane and old phrases implemented).
4% pickrate in a game with 150+ champions is actually quite high though. Riot August talks about this very point, that these low seeming numbers are taken out of proportion because people only look at the tippy top highest popularity.
He was still a champ you almost never saw in game, for the overwhelming majority of players. So people can him and haw over percentages or liking new viktor, but none of that changes the fact bro was almost never played and you rarely saw him before, and now that has changed - a lot.
I've been playing this game for about 7 years and I could count how many times I played with or against a Viktor, on one hand. I'm not kidding you. And that's through multiple elos.
@@AmberSweetPea Depends on how strong he was. He was very popular in season 9 and a I think 2 seasons ago. But he was never good since then, so you didn't see him a lot. Saw him a ton back then in High diamond-low master
If Viktor literally just welded metal robot parts onto his metal body after jayce shot him, he could have looked almost identical and I think people would have been satisfied
Ah yes. We can't keep Viktor's old look because it's too generic and fits too many existing characters in media.
Let's make him a Cult Wizard instead. That breaks the mold. And definitely doesn't fall right into another one.
The reason people were upset over the Viktor change is because they went from stronk russian man, to foot fetish femboy. And they literally did a 180 on the actual character, where he used to be all about using mechanical ingenuity to solve people's problems in the place of magic... to... just using magic. Like the whole point of his character was 'We don't need magic, we have glorious mechanical evolution'. Now he's like 'We need magic, mechanical evolution isn't enough'.
Like, how is he a 'Herald of the Arcane'... in a world filled with mages capable of wielding the Arcane. He's the 'Herald' of something that at this point, has existed longer than history and is a known thing in the world.
Imagine if they said 'We need to completely redo Braum's character because there are so many 'strong muscular nice guys' out there. Let's make him thin, weak, hates the cold, and he's broody and angry because he never does anything right.
On the note of Aatrox's old character... yeah, you could 1v1 dragon the moment it spawned lol.
To add to this, they literally changed Victors lore to Malzahars. Prodigy in his field has a life-changing encounter with an otherworldly magical entity that forever changes them and their world view
as an Illaoi main if riot ever use their twinkification beam on my priestess because of the same reasons, they will not hear the end of it, even if i only play league to get my victorious skin only.
They wouldn't do that cus of the backlash from people saying " male gaze " and what not they could turn her bisexual or lesbian to appeal to the masses tho
I wouldnt care if they hadnt made it the official canon; that, more than get me hopeful for future projects, scares me about the wild changes
a free skin for original players of a character because they love the character and riot likes their players? are you insane necrit?
Riot taking something beloved away by force? That's never happened before.
Necrit, H O N E Y, you must not play league anymore and this must be AI if you really think no other community would do that type of document. Have you met Lux players???? Lux, Sera, Ahri, and a few other communities are so massively passionate about their champs that they'd not only do that type of document, they'd add color, graphics, coding, and a whole damn website link to it! They'd probably create whole documentaries on YT with original songs too LOLOL. -- And before anyone says "yeah well why didn't Ahri players do that before?" That's a false equivalency, the Ahri drama was just one skin. Riot wasn't changing her entire look, lore, and every skin. It wasn't like she was going from a cute fox girl to an trollish edgy looking tomboy with ears on a headband.
My point is, if they did to Lux, Sera, Ahri, Ez, Yasuo/Yone, etc., what they did to Viktor, I guarantee you those communities would blow that document out of the water, they're THAT passionate about their champs.
15:40 Missed opportunity to say "..something *_GLORIOUS_* "
After the initial response of "ew, I hate new Viktor he ugly and not cool", I got to the stage of actually critically thinking and to me it's really just the execution of the new Viktor. I think thematically his kit doesn't really make sense for him, and at this point why does he have a third arm, it's a reference to a champion that doesn't exist and has no reason to exist in Arcane beyond being a reference to nothing.
How is that critical thinking? Viktor's design is quite ugly especially the in-game model.
You are like:"I looked into it and concluded that the design doesn't make sense".
@@MillenniumEarl014 looking into it and concluding something base on what you observed is called critical thinking
Viktor mains crying about Viktor, meanwhile Blitzcrank is basically written out of the lore and Blitz mains are just like "beep boop i'm a robot teehee".
their champion design wasn't changed, neither was Cammile or Zeri
13:40 totally not just his state in mid lane and top lane being good...
14:25 cannons being more worth it over early kills for hexfragments
Hey, it was between a viktor vgu and a Warwick one. Thank God they chose viktor.
Yeah Warwick mains dodged a bullet!! Arcane Warwick looks so weird and fugly, I know yall would have been soooo mad LOL
If you bought a shirt that you really liked, then one day went to your closet and it was replaced with a pair of pants with a note "hey we wanted to change the product to something else", you'd be pretty pissed too right? I'm not even a Victor player but like people paid into something and Riot completely changed it to the point where they don't resemble the original anymore. The quality of the new is irrelevant, if I pay for a cosmetic item it should stay the damn thing I paid for in the first place
lmao well put i liked reading this one
10:03 come on, it cant be that hard. this is how his followers would see him, arcane saviour. it really is that easy.
As an Ekko main since when I was young I feel like Im actually going through something similar.
Ekko's original design represented a smart kid that got into trouble for what he thought was right, but also had the ingenuity and skills to achieve the impossible the first time, every time. Arcane Ekko's changes are more subtle, but there isn't much talk about the Lost Children of Zaun or what he did until he was much older in Arcane, he didn't even have the Z-Drive until Act 3 which makes the awesome game and lore from Convergence questionable. His short stories when he released were heartbreaking and inspiring, detailing the lengths he'd go through for the people he loved, and how his mistakes forged his personality and philosophy. And, although it's something of a small nitpick, they redesigned Ekko's hair to have dreads. I think the design's nice enough, but his old crazy mohawk actually had a purpose with his character, which is that Ekko, along with the other Lost Kids and the majority of Zaun itself, was heavily themed off of Punk Rock, and his mohawk was supposed to be a nod to that. His dance in game is him strumming air guitar with his Minute Hand Bat, and his unleveled LoR card is him doing the same. It just had me a but worried because when Riot released all the official champion icons in the store, they gave Ekko dreads instead if his mohawk! I know the changes aren't as drastic as Viktor, but as a kid I looked up to and saw a lot of myself in Ekko, so I can't help but see all the differences in the character I love. I don't hate his minor redesign, I just hope that a lot of his original design philosophy isn't lost, as I think a lot of the champion designers that were around when he was created, is most likely not working there anymore. Matt Dunn, being the writer of his story along with others like Kindred, being an example of who was lost. I like the Boy Saviour, but I also miss the Boy Who Shattered Time. Please don't forget him Riot!
5:21 Enter skarner rework, where the only common point between the two versions is the fact that skarner is a scorpion, everything else is changed
Because the core fantasy of Skarner was "be scorpion, go fast, ult people." So they made him a scorpion that goes fast and ults people better.
There was also the whole capture point thing but they said they tried very hard to include it, they just couldn't make it both balanced and fun.
@@opossums-will-sing Actually, it was crystal scorpion. His core fantasy was changed substantially, also the current Skarner is meant to be specifically tanky and not fast moving.
Turns out if you keep a character underpowered for years to balance him around proplay, the pickrate is going to be low. It also turns out, that if you intentionally overtune a character massively, people will pick him up as a flavor of the month pick.
13:46 the numbers show that Viktor got a buff
He's a chill for riot .
Arcane should've never been canon, just like how the MCU isn't canon to Marvel Comics or atleast the main story. I was disappointed how they forcefully changed Viktor's look and aesthetic just to match the show instead of just revamping him.
Necrit argument falls flat when you remember viktor got mega buffed alongside his visuals, makes you wonder if that's on purpose....it is a super big blunder to just forget this detail
The rework should have tried something new with THE EXISTING character instead of just completely throwing away the old one. I would have been totally okay if they modernized the Machine Herald to be more visually appealing, but without changing his whole visual design/theme. For all the people who say "He was just knock off Dr Doom" YES THATS WHAT WE LIKE ABOUT HIM!!! Imagine the backlash if they changed Wukong to not just be "Son Wukong from Journey to the West" it's literally the appeal and core of the character, and to change not just the look, but also throw away ALL the lore is disgusting as well.
15:42 what a missed opportunity to say: "Something GLORIOUS"
According to RIOT AUGUST the average pick percentage is 3-4%. So at best hes average, they may have yanked Vic from more players than expected.
What do you mean "average pick percentage". That's not a variable, it only depends on the number of characters (for drafts at least)
There are 169 champions as of today, 10 of which are picked every game. No matter what champions are or aren't picked, the average will stay the same (that's what average is)
That's an average pickrate of 100/169x10=5.9%
@xhantTheFirst idk it's what Aug said on his stream multiple times. Most champs have a pick/play rate of 3-4%
@@xhantTheFirstwell.. there is like 10 champ that have really high pick rate every patch so you cant just calculate like that
I am still mad skarner did not get a traditional skin. None of the skins hit the "just a scorpion made out of gems" for me.
It feels like this would have been so easy to make.
I'm pretty sure it's just the silhouette; he looks like he's trying to apply to Miss Universe.