I think what helps warwick is that he HAS a great background, great voicelines that help you symphathyze with our resident werewolf who is DEFINETELY vander arcane e.e Naafiri sadly doesnt has that luxury and her story feels too similar to aatrox's weird lanky ex.
But I thought those things were like non-canon takes of characters, somewhat a way to portray their character through something they likely wouldn't do. Warwick Probably wouldn't do thriller, he's too serious for that but it is cool and fitting his undead wolf form. Nafaari being pet the dog is uniquely cute and ironic to who she is.
I would've like Naafiri to be actually one of the weakest of the Darkin (not worth to be mentioned by any other Darkin or in Darkin stories) but strong enough to be sealed and NOW finding a mentality, a way, to be as strong (and be different from Aatrox and Rhaast)
Could've even try to justify "the celestials tried to destroy Aatrox blade, Rhaast scythe, but they never tried to destroy the weak Naafiri. They were fools, because not even she was weak but, given time, even famished hounds would be able to break her dagger - and her mind".
@@felipecouto1102 at one side, a darkin so strong and angry he killed A GOD, in the other side... Dogs. Like 20 of them. Angry and strong dogs, may I evilish add
Tbf, I loved her design not as a Darkin, but as a dog. Naafiri is based on african wild dogs and it shows. All her kit is based on surviving fights, overwhelming her prey and tiring them up, just like african wild dogs. Hell, the whole mentality of "ok, I have my ult, MEN GO IN" is just perfect for a champ based on a dog. Now, to make her a better darkin, I would say that she didn't needed to be treated as this powerful leader, but to make her as the most savage, cruel, kimd of animalistic Darkin. Hell, it would've made the story even better by wanting to become the host of a whole dune hound pack.
Yes, a fellow African dog appreciator! I’m enamored with the concept of this powerful demon overlord gaining a new sense of empathy from an encounter with seemingly lowly beasts, and growing as a person from an unfortunate event. It would be so interesting to see how she presents herself and her new view on life when she meets up with her former comrades and subjects, and they’re all perplexed by how she behaves now. And really appreciate a study in how animal brains and perspectives work differently from humans. It’s applying a science fiction lense to something we see as mundane; and it’s being done in a fantasy setting.
fr They Riot should buff her more into this fantasy, of being like a ton of dogs and diving in all together. Her burst is great but the rest of the abilities don't really sell this fantasy well The most fun I have with her is literally AAs enemies with 7 dogs instead of any weird combo, she is even better as a bruiser than an assassin
Being that Naafiri is both an animal and many individuals, I think she could have been the perfect vessel to explore the trauma of the average Darkin. Naafiri could have been so badly affected by her encounter with the void, that her brain coped by locking those memories away, along with the upper mental faculties she would have needed to comprehend them. This devolved Naafiri from a once proud god warrior to a snarling beast (think Killer Croc), that was made worse by her transformation into a Darkin, followed by her years of isolation inside her dagger. Eventually when she gets the host of the dune hounds her mind shatters further with each hound holding a different part of her mind, still linked, but divided.
Weird how both Belveth and Naafiri where those "YEAH FINALLY SOME [x thing we want]", monster/void champ and darkin champ, but both ended up being actually not planned as that since the beggining and the final characters ended up seeing like a lucky end point of fate And IT IS HARD not looking at LoR as this poor child who cooked so MANY cool concepts for Darkin, for Void and for Monsters and now being there, forgotten
@dieptrieu6564 like, I get that, but the factor is more the LORE being cool rather than "being a powerscalling monster" A lot of people liked Joraal very much, who isn't something absurd, and while (yes) making a card with an effect and a flavour text is easier, I don't think Naafiri couldn't have been made better, you know?
What's funny to think is that I am a firm believer of Naafiri becoming a super interesting and fleshed out character with a place in the lore and world if only they added Xolaani to the actual game simply because they are two darkin that want to unify their brethren but via very different ways. Naafiri acknowledges the individuality of the pack and understands that the single entity needs the pack just as the pack needs the single entity. She understands that there is no greater body that could be molten together from the individual pieces. Meanwhile Xolaani comes from another continent with a completely different understanding of unison. For her, everything and everyone needs to follow her orders not by choice, but by subjugation. Her end goal is to LITERALLY melt every being down into flesh slush and make herself the ultimate, singular entity. It's an amazingly compelling concept to have different kinds of unison clashing with each other and would give both reason to not only interact with each other but even turn into two macabre philosophy sisters that sit somewhere at a table arguing about what plan is better while sending out their respective armies and using the results as arguments. It wouldn't be a question of world domination anymore, but a question of ideals, played out in the most fucked way for anyone around that gets killed and torn apart just for someone to have a new compelling argument at the dinner table.
I think Xolaani is way better summarized as a comparison to Elesh Norn, if you go into her comments and narratives she's not trying to make one singular flesh monstrosity, she's trying to enact peace via force, because to her every other option has been tested and failed. Individual free will = eventual violence chaos and pain, only she can be trusted with doing the thinking so just leave it all to her so you all stop fighting, yes, sleep child, all will be peaceful...
@@gvccihvcci You can argue for that general mentality/philosophy but her final transformation in the card art and her mechanics makes it pretty clear that the end goal is "everything is Xolaani, Xolaani is everything". Her final form is a gigantic amalgamation of the aspect of justice, her base form, all the stuff that was killed to get her to "level up" and her mechanic is that anything summoned turns into more Xolaani, in return increasing in power the more HAS BEEN turned into xolaanis.
18:44 If I recall correctly it's because she was also designed with teaching the enemy on how to play against an assassin in mind (dev post on Naafiri's gameplay), so they made her incredibly telegraphed.
Yep, going from 1+1 immediately to solving multivariate calculus problems. I don't fault the idea behind it but going from fighting Naafiri to Zed is...not the same.
@bkaneshiro14 yeah, but the problem is she became a thing wayyyy to late, if she was the first assassin then yeah it's a nice evolution in difficulty from Naafiri to to Zed. But her is Zed to Naafiri, so is basically hard mode that we all are used to to baby mode. If all other assassins had something of much delay as her than yeah she is fine. Nocturn is similar to her as, you do get some time to react to him. O wait he has a spell shield and can jump on me while low and not much of options to deal with. But besides of ult Nocturn is not that great with engaging without ult. Similar Rengar if he is not in jungle. Besides all I like Naafiri, wish there lore was a bit more interesting.
I think Xolaani is way better summarized as a comparison to Elesh Norn, even down to the appearance. She isn't precisely all about "making a flesh pool" she is about doing whatever needs to be done, to ensure peace, and if that includes slavery and complete tyranny so be it, the ends justify the means (and at this point in her madness she believes there is NO other way to achieve peace, people are too evil/violent if given free will)
Instead of having the dagger shatter, what they should’ve done is this: Since the pack all attacked the dagger, Naafiri’s consciousness was overwhelmed and essentially forced itself to scatter across the dogs, morphing the weapon to merge with everyone. That way it would still explain how Naafiri became a hive mind, or pack mind in this case. Edit: I wrote this before watching the video…
The thing that baffles me the most is the Darkin Dagger shattering It could have been really easy to just make it like, multiple hyenas/dogs grabbed the Dagger at once, causing all of them to fuse into Naafiri
What baffles me the most is that, after a cinematic full of symbolisms and metaphores representing her shattered state of mind, people still went to her bio and read the "Dagger shattering" thing literally. The lore change was just them spoon feeding the community.
I don’t mind Naafiri is a Darkin, but the leadership and most powerful thing feels wrong. Make it so when she became a Darkin and went crazy she became overexcited and outgoing, like a dog, but she is a demigod that throws knives everywhere. When she became a dog it exemplifies it, she wants to run around, play, eat, and make friends but she is a giant knife dog causing destruction. She has her pack so she isn’t alone (that’s amumu’s shtick) but she wants to find her human, boss, companion, etc to give her loyalty (dog gimmick). If they wanna make a dog, make a dog.
i still love the idea that nafiri isn't the strongest darkin but THINKS they are which shows the ego that all the darkin think they are the strongest which is why they all fought for control cause the ego they all had was that they were the strongest and deserved to lead causing the infighting
I will forever defend bel 'veth's design and will take her over kai 'sa 2 any day >:o long live the giant goofy mantray As for naafiri... ngl i still like her but at the end of the day she's just yuumi (aka a domestic animal with a fantastical feature), and my heart cannot deny yuumi, so why would i deny funne doggo? However i really WISH riot did something more with her backstory! This was the first darkin who didnt had a human-ish vessel and a lot could've been done. But much like my beloved skarner she's stucked into a status quo that she'll be locked in unless riot decides to move her lore forward. As for the "adapting parts of the animal she hunts thing", while it's a 10/10 idea, i fear that this could've make her silhouette even more confusing than what it is with the extra doggos, and since riot has to make money outta their champions i feel like this could lead to some problems..
I love Naafiri. I do feel like riot dropped the ball big time with how they marketed her gameplay. Mid lane is an awful role for her considering how much of her power rests into her long-range engages with W and R. I usually play her top, shove lane with her amazing wave clear, then start to roam mid or take grubs and influence the map. It makes for a really fun gameplay that fulfills the fantasy of being this whole pack of dogs roaming around looking for easy prey. The whole "Beginner assassin" was a huge miss. She has little skill transferance with other assassins due to having almost no escape tools, and she's a lot more weighted towards macro skill, and less micro, than all of them. I think she's very unique and i hope riot plays to her strength in the future rather than try to retroactively fit her into what she already fails to do.
You know which lane better roams then top? You got it! Midlane xd imo she is fine role whise but her kit is just so cluncky just cause she needs to be a beginner champ just makes her feel kinda bad to play sometimes
Naafiri is one of my favourite champions to play gameplay-wise, I really wish she had similar gameplay but as one of the other concepts, I mean look at the Targonian Retriever concept art, it's immaculate.
My head canon to everything is that Naafiri’s original kit was supposed to be that of Bel’Veth’s kit. Killing void creatures and monsters would allow you to get more pack mates, etc. Bel’Veth took that kit because her intended kit was taken for the A Sol rework. I always thought the flying manta ray seemed off to be an auto attacker and flying around shooting a void laser seemed to fit that fantasy more. The kit that naafiri ended up getting was just scraps from other designs.
In reality, this conversation kind of falls apart when we remember that Briar has a discarded kit from Naafiri, with this mechanic of getting out of control
@ I wasn’t aware that Briar had a discarded kit from Naafiri. I can totally see it. Makes me curious of how many “kits” exists for blank champions that they shuffle around until they settle on a final design.
@xZer033x I think this is a pretty common thing in this area of character creation, things can be discarded all the time, it makes sense that they revisit some concepts
@@xZer033xAnd that doesn't mean much, Jhin and Kindred were initially one and were split into two champions, and yet they are two of Riot's best champions.
The main thing I appreciate about Naafiri is that she's an introductory assassin I think champions like that for various roles in the game is important for getting new players into the game and can be a gateway for the role in general.
Never understood the hate for Naafiri. People were like “she’s just a dog” but that’s the same for Varus then. He’s just a human. In fact Yuumi gets the same hate too. Honestly it’s ok to have animals as champions they can bring more to the table.
Yeah and tbh aatrox is also basically just “a human with some extra demon-looking traits” so why are people so worked up about “a dog with demon-looking traits”
Think the hate comes from, as Nicky said, "she's just a dog SHOEHORNED INTO A DARKIN", when we have SO MANY DIFFERENT OTHER OPTIONS for her to be "just a dog". A targonian one like he showed. A celestial one. A freljordian wolf. A demacian or noxian hound. Even an ixtalian one, interacting with Nida and Neeko
I say it's because Naafiri is hella basic, story, design and gameplay. The ONLY thing that is cool about her is the fact that she spawns more hounds, but even that was done by Elise with her spiders so Naafiri only appeal is the story which kinda contradicts the whole Darkin if I remember correctly because their weapons are close to indestructible, but a bunch of dogs bitting it shatter it? So yeah, Naafiri just mid to a fault.
I love Naafiri, but I totally agree with your points. Especially not being interconnected at all with the other darkin. Oh, she (somehow) got torn apart by dogs? Why the hell was that not communicated to Aatrox in the story? Even if it was stupid and not elaborated on, her being torn apart like that could be such a conversation starter for the other darkin. Not really Varus, but what if Kayn or Zed were to try and break apart Rhaast to be used across the Shadow Order? What if Aatrox tried to split his consciousness enough to stop existing? We really need something to further the darkin’s story. They’ve been stagnant for so long and so much has gone unexplained. I don’t need it to make sense. I’m fine with rule of cool. But I hate that they’re just being left to rot and only being brought out when Riot wants a red and grey champ who’s not Noxian.
Personally, for me Naafiri is a 9/10. My only problem I have with her, is the gameplay, and specifically W with how short the range is and how long it takes to dash.
I actually really like Naafiri (lore notwithstanding). I think she's fun, I love champions with pets and I think she has way more build variety than most try to mess with. Ghostblade is really good for making roams and both that and Opportunity are good for getting out so you don't need to save the E. Hubris is awesome with her ult reset to keep her in the fight once that wears off. And aside from that, her W is a really scary and fun engage tool. I'll say this much, I hope Riot doesn't end up reworking her like I think they said around the time it was announced that changes for Swain were happening. I really don't think she needs it.
Naafiri is a character I *want* to like: awesome concept, simple but effective gameplay (in concept), and a fun combo of cute but scary... But yeah you articulated how I feel about her perfectly. Lore feels half-assed, gameplay feels clunky (LET HER FUCKING JUNGLE PLEEEEEASE), and too much of her character is devoted to the dog memes instead of the cool Darkin hive mind concept.
I always forget Naafiri exists. Honestly I don't know how they didn't just go for the pack of Noxian hunting hounds. Would have been better than "Darkin knife dog"
Yeah I was very excited when I heard of the pack mechanic, but in game the actual pack is so insignificant even Lulu's Pix feel more like having a separate companion as playable character.
I love Naafiri, I main her and lock her in for all my matches unless we need ap then Sylas. But yes I agree Naafiri bio and lore could've been done so much better I love her design and skin though i would like to see how hard a legendary for her would go. The problem with Naafiri is she doesn't have any good lore or character development which drags her down hard and then we get her height of 7ft tall from a RiotRaptorr tweet Since we can't change the past we have to work with what we we're given, If LOR or even a color story expands on her and gives her some more development to help establish her as an entity in the world maybe have her find Varus and have some story there I do like her gameplay but i agree for an assassin she feels slow they nerfed her Ult movement speed and her damage is front loaded onto hitting both Q's, she's designed to be a beginner assassin which makes her engage and play style obvious but that shouldn't restrict her from having more mobility or a solid secondary damage option like majority of the other assassins In my opinion where Naafiri is right not is fine we just desperately need an expansion on her lore and gameplay wise make her more agile give her E a 1 second less cooldown make her Ult bonus movement speed on initial permanent until her ult runs out and remove the bonus movement speed reduction when damaged by a champion doing something like that will give her the agility she lacks make her feel faster and it will bolster her thematic as this pack of dune hounds who chase you down endlessly, its like landing Briar ult and never hitting E, when Naafiri Ults she'll chase you down and shes fast enough to catch you no matter the distance, they beed a splash art that depicts her size as well shes a 7ft Darkin Dune hound yet she's portrayed as small in game and no splash represents her size
i love naafiri. im someone who has played a ton of all the fighters and assassins, zed and rengar both being in my top 10 mastery alongside kayn (more for rhaast than assassin but still). and i could go either way for the lore. i liked xolaani a lot already so i thought it was weird but it was whatever because it's not like every champ has to be 100% unique in every aspect (we have like two of everything almost; freljord berserkers, big knight loyal to their nation, mage with staff, mage with book, support with shield, etc), but the gameplay i think is phenomenal for naafiri. she is allowed to thrive unlike zed/rengar because she isn't as volatile as them. she doesn't have instant oneshots without counterplay as it's been a huge gripe within the community for YEARS. zed STILL retains a high ban rate despite literally being confirmed to be forced into a weak state because people simply do not like low counterplay assassins. i think naafiri just feels more like a properly functioning diver who builds assassin, much like how mundo is a juggernaut who builds tank. i love the super high apm stuff, i love the giga brain positioning stuff, i love the braindead oneshots, but above all of that, naafiri has the healthiest most balanced and straightforward kit of any ad assassin and so the gameplay is the best thing that came out of her release. at least she still has a heal like all darkin should, seeing as how they're supposed to be known for their blood magic. VARUS just didn't get the memo for anything, bastard rebel darkin. >:(
My interpretation they were implying was that naafiri was a top contender in a head-on battle, but susceptible to trickery leading to her downfall. So in the end she isn't "The strongest". Now she played into her strengths by again feeding into her all or nothing mentality, now with the whole pack following her as one. But by being more of a carnal monster she also makes her weakness of being easily tricked even stronger. Thinking like this I think she's pretty neat, we just need more anecdotes.
I actually love the concept of a being that possesses/soul binds with people being changed based on what they paid up with. And really love a study in how animal brains and perspectives work differently from humans. It’s applying a science fiction lense to something we see as mundane; and it’s being done in a fantasy setting. I positively adore this powerful demon overlord gaining a new sense of empathy from an encounter with base beasts, and growing as a person from an unfortunate event.
The idea of another wolf champion might’ve brought me back for a hot second but the botched nature of her and the whole Darkin crap leads to a big ol’ “nevermind.” She’s cute though, that’s something.
I felt the exact same way about Naafiri - when they came out that she was going to be a Darkin Dog i thought it would be something along the lines of Dark Souls' Sif, and when she came out i forced myself to like her a LOT, since this was supposed to be THE monster champion we got Now that we get Skarner (my grievances with him aside) I can finally allow myself to think her integration was badly thought-out and hope Riot thinks more deeply about the conceptual phase of champions
I adapted Naafiri for a "support" role with Dark Harvest back in season 13. FNAFing the hell out of squishy ADCs and supports and farming stacks upon stacks of DH from thiccer dudes was fun af, my only nemesis being Lux (nobody played Orianna support back then either).
Hey so personally I love Naafiri but I do want to say that her lore does suck, and I like playing her because she’s a dog but that’s nothing that’s added from being a darkin, she could’ve been any sorta dog and still given off the same energy. Anyways gameplay wise I love her, I think that there is a bit of a strategy with her for trying to get characters with knockbacks to use it before the go in before the complete counter. I have a lot of fun figuring out my go in and then getting to punish it once everything is set up perfectly. That being said the extra dogs don’t really add anything other than body blocking some cc here and there.
Hmm about gameplay, the dogs do the mayority of the damage lategame and she can delete a tank, so yeah i belive you are biased due to lore reasons, her gameplay is very fluid and she does delete people. Indeed she can be aesaly countered with a syndra E and that but thats why the Q exist , 1000 cuts and all in, she is no zed or Talon she is more like a non- imidate engage champion until the oportunity stikes, preety much like a pack of wild dogs.
Anyone remember when the pack of dog used to be able to break her blade to pieces? Tbh if they kept it in it would have made it more fun for naafiri, sure it would make no sense for a bunch of canines to destroy a weapon not even the gods can, but it would emphasize how weak will naafiri is, it would add to the fact that she is a strong physical warrior like aatrox, but in mind she is inferior to even rhaast, cause as she have said, her mind has been scattered for too long and destroyed only to be calm when the pack was possessed. Instead of the pack destroying the blade like its a weak thing, have it destroyed because she was so mind broken and scattered brain that the prison that holds her cant even keep her in 1 piece, thats why it breaks at the sheer multitude of hosts touching it, cause to possess the body, darkin must have the stronger, more overwhelming will to out phase the current owner of the body, thats why aatrox can control an army size body, thats why rhaast is a lil baby bit- who cant even take over an orphan with knife tricks. My point is maybe they could have done more with her, ik the darkin idea is an afterthought but riot can do alot with afterthoughts if they actually put their minds to it, and not another 200$ chroma bait
An idea that came to my head was if Naafiri was instead a much weaker darkin, but also that the durability of the weapons are somewhat proportional to the strength of said darkin. Aatrox and Xolaani would be nearly indestructible, while Naafiri was ripped to shreds by some dogs. Her story would be about coming to understand her own weakness, while realising the strength that came with being in a pack, in turn making her stronger now than she ever was.
just since you seemed to question it, yes a dog will eat a bird if it can get a hold of one. My neighbors Chow caught a bird midflight and that was that for the bird.
Maybe a darkin weapon works like a prison when a darkin takes over a host they trade places one is in the body the other is in the weapon but the host lack of will and knowledge of blood magic means they stay inside the weapon forever. So not saying this is canon just speculation maybe the reason the dogs shattered the blade was because the number of minds was too much for the weapon to handle and yes the celestials tried everything to destroy the weapons but did they didn’t try using multiple hosts cause trapping the darkin was already a massive challenge and they didn’t wanna go through that again so the just hid them away. Take kayn for example when he goes blue rhaast is completely gone from the weapon sane as how the host is just dead. Of course a darkin like aatrox has the drive to alway assimilate a host. But for Naafiri that could be plausible reason she even shares dog mannerisms but that might just be riot. If she got a color story we’d have more info.
My headcannon is that Naafiri was an outcast of the Ascended because she believed that she was capable all by herself without help fighting back the void and one of the most powerful Ascended at that which lead to her imprisonment. Only then when she was finally split into a pack of dune hounds did she realize that in unity, the Darkin can become unstoppable. She is endlessly searching the Deserts of Shurima because she doesn’t know where the others have gone because she had no real attachments to the other Darkins. I guess her more “playful” characterization could be her just going insane after having her consciousness split in multiple beings or her just endlessly searching the desert and loosing hope.
I agree, how do you make a darkin character but don't incorporate the living weapon itself to the final design? That makes no sense. Also why monstrous jungle champion became dog, like they didn't even try to make her some monstrous dog like Cerberus with 3 heads and snake tail. Naafiri is just a dog with collar of blades. One of the weakest design tbh, they should put Xolaani instead to the league.
Man instead of Naafiri becoming part of the hive mind she just takes over them and fuses their body into a great cerberus beast, that would have been awesome! Really like her but she should be more than just bladed dog.
Yeah i was thinking They could profit by coping SIF FROM DARK SOULS into League But is just a dog also the design of melt-snakes and having 2 or 3 heads is cool In fact even a 2 head dog is even better than a red dog, Ortos is a greek Monster brother of Cerberus and is just a 2 headed dog 😂
In terms of gameplay execution what I think means the most is the part where she’s supposed to be a character who is equally an entire pack of dogs, yet in game it’s just one big dog doing 70% of the work that spawns in little dogs automatically
It boggles my mind that they couldn't come up with lore for Naafiri as a Noxian when there's an entire section of Noxus' military dedicated to training Drakehounds. They very easily could have made Naafiri a hyper intelligent Alpha Drakehound. Maybe make her the end result of a Black Rose experiment, and tie her story together with Rell. It would be a really interesting ongoing story that all of the Black Rose's ambitions are starting to turn against them bit by little bit. I came up with that idea in like...3 minutes, you cannot tell me the Riot lore team is so wholly incompetent that they had to default to making Naafiri a Darkin...
I like her because 1 silly doggy of course and 2 is that the thought of going from single mindedness to a hive mind in such a short amount of time since darkin learn to assimilate as fast as they can to take over a host and continue forward. What really sold me on her character is the thought that she had to really lean in to and embrace the pack mindset or else she would go crazy, again going from one extreme to the other. Going from being alone trapped in a dagger to never being alone while possessing multiple bodies. Just thinking about how she had to cope is really interesting to me.
Before the item rework Naafiri jungle was my favourit thing to play. You would go goredrinker into full lethality and be completley unkilable. Please bring back goredrinker
One way i could see Naafiri's lore being more interesting is if she was never near the strongest among the Darkin, physically or magically, but one of the more cunning, manipulating others to her side to compesate for her lack of actual power. It'd also be thematic with her daggers, she's a strategist who calculates and waits for the best time to strike, preferably in the back. But now that she's this pack, an apex predator, she's WAY more arrogant and willing to resort to brute force to get her way
I both like their own character designs her and belveth, I just think naafiri needed more work on her lore to give her a good home, I do also agree with the jungle statements, what’s your opinion on her skins
I feel like that would be hard to do without having way too much visual clutter, then again league already has like shit tons of visual clutter so who knows.
If riot were to make another dog champion, it would be more expressive of loyal house dogs that follow orders from their masters and twist it into something of good intentions but blind to the consequences. the targonian dogs you mentioned for instance. im not a lore buff so it probably wont fit but something like that. creating shield walls or dragging the enemy slowly as he locks jaws and doesnt let go. a bruiser or tank type champ that peels for his team more while protecting the backline.
I like how deceptive her damage is. Everytime the first Q ability landed, it'll deal a thin stick of HP to which the enemy will always see it as very weak poke then try to advance and bully the lane. But then the second Q comes in and enemy just pooped themselves.
what gets to me is that Riot proudly proclaimed that Naafiri was a lore character like Yone. you know the person mentioned in Varus's color story? it was retconed it was Naafiri
would be cool if there was no main Naafiri, just the pack, with multiple small health bars similar to Kled. Less health = less dogs = less damage? or go the other way where if the members of the pack fall when taking damage that they then infuse to become a single big main Naafiri becoming stronger at low Hp. Definitely feel like they could have been way more creative
Its really weird that you keep comparing naafiri to skarner considering skarner also has no plot relevance, no personality, no connections to anyone else and doesn't even have the memes to justify his existance, all the while sacrifing old skarner, one of the most important characters in piltover lore.
Because Naafiri being oh so powerful is only told in her bio (written in her perspective) and in her voice lines, I like to believe that she only believes she is so powerful and could almost have lead the Darkin (all Darkin believe that of themselves, don't they?) and was in fact just another mad, power-hungry darkin all along.
something i think could have been cool is if instead of naafiri being a darkin, she was instead an experiment of Vladimir's. like she could have been a dog that vlad found and experimented on and in doing so he created a dog that has the power of hemomancy, and you could even keep the pact thing with them just being conjured out of blood instead. i dont think this is a perfect solution (as i dont know about vlads lore and if that would even make sense for him to do that) but i think it would have let riot keep the demon dog thing they wanted but not ruin the first darkin we got post recon
as a guy that likes the lore of league and think that matters when i play a champ, i like naafiri just because i forget her lore and what she is supposed to be and i just like the gameplay without comparing it to other assassins, she totally IS messed up and especially on the jungle bit you talked about i absolutely agree but i just forget it and play the doggo and enjoy it. i don't know why or how but it doesn't stop me for this champ
Naafiri inspired a character in the story I’m currently writing cuz I wanted a demonic doglike character and seeing how poorly executed Naafiri was had me feeling challenged so now my indie comic is gonna have a mainstay doggo character. Thanks Riot!
I feel like Naafiri could accomplish her thematic fantasy if like yorick her abilities mark and make the lil dogs leap at a target. You could take this 1 step further and reduce individual doggo damage and make them bleed on hit. Every dog adds to the total of the bleed scaling with her lethality. This way you grant her a niche as a backloaded assassin. Which the pack tears you to pieces once she's on you. But you can cut her damage for counterplay because of the other stuff in her kit in addition to killing the dogs.
Her abilities already mark enemies for her dogs to attack. when you send a Q over and tag a champion all of her dogs zoom over and begin ripping into the champ. AA, and other abilities do the same making your pack attack the target for a few seconds, before they recall back to you. Although I'll be real when I say the idea of the dogs adding their own bleed to their attacks would be awesome and make her Q2 a lot more satisfying to land after a combo of attacks. But IMO they should reduce the damage her dogs take from Melee attacks as well. Any Melee champ can one tap em, at any rank, and maybe it would be cooler if when she got fed they couldn't just do that.
@exstreamgamer if they don't plan to make the dogs a threat I agree big time. But I think the pack should feel like a real threat. It wouldn't take from her simplicity either. Since her combos could remain the same. I just feel like she needs just a little more to be what she could be
How about "Nafiri's min was damaged by the void and then slowly broke apart more and more, so when Mayisha imprisoned the Darkin, Nafiri got bound to all of her daggers, not just one."
Naafiri irks me to an extreme level. First of all her design just kind of feels like a level 25 wolf on a demon continent in a milquetoast mmorpg, and she could be much, much more. What REALLY irks me though is that my power fantasy in games has always been characters who apply pressure on the map by splitting themselves into more than a single character. That's why I tried to learn Lost Vikings in HOTS and in dota2 I played meepo and arc warden (for the uninitiated meepo permamently splits himself into almost identical copies of himself but if a single one of them dies they all die, and arc warden creates a single copy that is truly identical and can even use item actives and also can die safely), I liked other "summoners" there too for similar reasons, especially Chen but that's a bit of a different story. In league the closest I have to that fantasy is Yorick (and I guess old mordekaiser with a dragon pet however this doesn't exist anymore sadly, Ivern doesn't really give me as much of this magic for some reason), I even have Yorick in my top 3 mastery leveled character because of that. However his control is *extremely* limited. He doesn't really feel like "many characters" archetype, but a summoner, and his summons can only either follow him or int down the lanes (seriously the maiden loves going down under turret and dying that way, it's frankly a bad idea to let her go in 90% of situations I'd say, you'd do a better job split pushing by just pushing with her and then immediately leave, it's safer and quicker). So when naafiri got announced I got really hyped because they described it as my gameplay fantasy, what more they said they had something *similar* as a concept for Skarner but they decided to opt out because naafiri was already a thing. I didn't expect anything quite on a scale of an RTS unit control because of league limitations but I expected some control. However her dogs... are kind of just there. To me they always felt more akin to malzahar crabs rather than anything that makes you think in a completely different way about how you approach the game. And now I know damn well that because naafiri """""fits""""""" this niche I ain't getting anything even remotely close to that for years, if ever because this game runs on spaghetti code and these characters sadly often end up extremely problematic. My disappointment is immeasurable and my archetype is forever ruined.
Naafiri's okay to play. But Zed's more fun. Naafiri's got some cool mechanics. But Talon does it better. Her ult is quite invasive although useful. But Rengar does it better. The only thing Naafiri has for herself is the dogs, then again Yorick and Malzahar can and WILL use them better. Like Nicky said, she could be deleted out of the game and nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing would change. She's a waste of space all things considered.
@@camimi7782 I gotta be out here fighting for my gurl naafiri i mean she's been my pfp for like a year now lol. but yeah maybe not 40%, maybe around like 5-10%
13:01 It probably took you a second to kill him there because of the support item he had. It reduces damage for like 2 seconds and I think slows when the shield/bubble thing bursts.
I find it weird how instead of making a known character from the lore with already established connection to the others like Corina or Xolaani, Riot instead decides to make an entirely new, never heard of before champ that has vague similarities to the characters like Renata and Naafiri.
If the whole “pack assimilation” idea you suggested was implemented, it would essentially be a revival of pre-rework Mordekaiser, right? Bc his whole thing was getting the spirits.
adding on what you said about Naafiri gameplay: I feel there's a huge lack of sound or visual feedback when you hit Q. For the main damage source and a spell that has different outcomes if you hit once or twice (and, as you said, is slow) there isn't appropriate feedback!!! When you hit Morgana Q, there's such a good sound and that adds so much about how you feel when playing her - Naafiri lacks that. Also, there was a lot opportunity to add this feedback, make her bark if you hit once and howl if you hit twice or smth!!
I think Naafiri's only issue to me is the wind up on her W being as long as it is, and so easily blockable too. She is a threat when she gets going, and her ult having the sound to signify it makes sense. But it feels absolutely horrendous as a Naafiri player to be so easily stopped by one chunky mfer stepping in the path by accident (or purpose but lbr, its usually an accident). If her e had a bit more to it as far as helping her get back out, or if her w was faster or.. idk. something. She's the most fair assassin to go against at the very least, but if youre a squishy with literally no cc, you still die to her 1v1 because yeah. she's still an assassin. She's in a weird place tbh. I take her "most powerful darkin" lore to be more of an ego thing on her part, like why else would the celestials not even bother with her after sealing her away? Just makes so much more sense to me. And fits the lore of them all being egotistical arrogant beings. Like the audacity of this dog fr fr. I still only play Naafiri on ARAM though. She feels pretty tough to do well on in norms if the enemy has a singular brain cell and counters the w engage. It's oddly easier to get picks in ARAM I find. Might have to do with my playstyle though I dunno. I think her W could use some adjusting but i like her skill based q, like if you miss it's obvious. (Saying the first hit doesnt do damage is a little disingenuous though, it does. It's just slow DOT damage. the second hit makes all of the DOT hit at once.)
Naafiri is really cool to me because she is such a slow assassin. I don't feel mean when playing her because there's so much counter play. So it feels more fair.
Yes I have been looking forward to being used. Yes I have been, am fire, eyes buttered, my savior. Its hard to describe how im tip tappity tappity tap at the moment. Im iron, actually, 9 mm pacifier.
To be fair warwick is also potrayed as an extreamly scary yet tragic monster. Yet all his emotes are silly dog stuff and thriller
True, but he still has more treat from him than Naafiri. Every single emote is a dog doing the funny
I think what helps warwick is that he HAS a great background, great voicelines that help you symphathyze with our resident werewolf who is DEFINETELY vander arcane e.e
Naafiri sadly doesnt has that luxury and her story feels too similar to aatrox's weird lanky ex.
But I thought those things were like non-canon takes of characters, somewhat a way to portray their character through something they likely wouldn't do.
Warwick Probably wouldn't do thriller, he's too serious for that but it is cool and fitting his undead wolf form.
Nafaari being pet the dog is uniquely cute and ironic to who she is.
@@x-nimator9997 Aatrox's weird lanky ex would've been a better champion Naafiri is just wasted
I would've like Naafiri to be actually one of the weakest of the Darkin (not worth to be mentioned by any other Darkin or in Darkin stories) but strong enough to be sealed and NOW finding a mentality, a way, to be as strong (and be different from Aatrox and Rhaast)
Could've even try to justify "the celestials tried to destroy Aatrox blade, Rhaast scythe, but they never tried to destroy the weak Naafiri. They were fools, because not even she was weak but, given time, even famished hounds would be able to break her dagger - and her mind".
Yeah, she could have been the literal UNDERDOG, we were so robbed.
@@borrowedcolt1108 she would have a interaction after killing Rhaast or Xolaani that would be "say I'm the underdog now, I dare you!!"
I always thought that was her lore, the idea that she was one of the strongest Darkin is not conveyed AT ALL
@@felipecouto1102 at one side, a darkin so strong and angry he killed A GOD, in the other side... Dogs. Like 20 of them. Angry and strong dogs, may I evilish add
Tbf, I loved her design not as a Darkin, but as a dog. Naafiri is based on african wild dogs and it shows. All her kit is based on surviving fights, overwhelming her prey and tiring them up, just like african wild dogs. Hell, the whole mentality of "ok, I have my ult, MEN GO IN" is just perfect for a champ based on a dog.
Now, to make her a better darkin, I would say that she didn't needed to be treated as this powerful leader, but to make her as the most savage, cruel, kimd of animalistic Darkin. Hell, it would've made the story even better by wanting to become the host of a whole dune hound pack.
Yes, a fellow African dog appreciator!
I’m enamored with the concept of this powerful demon overlord gaining a new sense of empathy from an encounter with seemingly lowly beasts, and growing as a person from an unfortunate event. It would be so interesting to see how she presents herself and her new view on life when she meets up with her former comrades and subjects, and they’re all perplexed by how she behaves now.
And really appreciate a study in how animal brains and perspectives work differently from humans. It’s applying a science fiction lense to something we see as mundane; and it’s being done in a fantasy setting.
fr They Riot should buff her more into this fantasy, of being like a ton of dogs and diving in all together. Her burst is great but the rest of the abilities don't really sell this fantasy well
The most fun I have with her is literally AAs enemies with 7 dogs instead of any weird combo, she is even better as a bruiser than an assassin
Being that Naafiri is both an animal and many individuals, I think she could have been the perfect vessel to explore the trauma of the average Darkin. Naafiri could have been so badly affected by her encounter with the void, that her brain coped by locking those memories away, along with the upper mental faculties she would have needed to comprehend them. This devolved Naafiri from a once proud god warrior to a snarling beast (think Killer Croc), that was made worse by her transformation into a Darkin, followed by her years of isolation inside her dagger. Eventually when she gets the host of the dune hounds her mind shatters further with each hound holding a different part of her mind, still linked, but divided.
Bro fucking cooked with this one. Would of loved this as the actual lore for Naafiri. Could be expanded upon in so many ways.
Hold up, their writing is fire???🔥 ✍️
Ooo, something like a dissociative disorder! That's actually really neat and clever
Weird how both Belveth and Naafiri where those "YEAH FINALLY SOME [x thing we want]", monster/void champ and darkin champ, but both ended up being actually not planned as that since the beggining and the final characters ended up seeing like a lucky end point of fate
And IT IS HARD not looking at LoR as this poor child who cooked so MANY cool concepts for Darkin, for Void and for Monsters and now being there, forgotten
It's easier for a card game to cook however they like. Can't really do that in an action game.
@dieptrieu6564 like, I get that, but the factor is more the LORE being cool rather than "being a powerscalling monster"
A lot of people liked Joraal very much, who isn't something absurd, and while (yes) making a card with an effect and a flavour text is easier, I don't think Naafiri couldn't have been made better, you know?
Yes! Give us Xolaani and Joraal, cowards!
@@meias. Only after Baalkux tho
@@jojak0512 kux and baal torture!
What's funny to think is that I am a firm believer of Naafiri becoming a super interesting and fleshed out character with a place in the lore and world if only they added Xolaani to the actual game simply because they are two darkin that want to unify their brethren but via very different ways.
Naafiri acknowledges the individuality of the pack and understands that the single entity needs the pack just as the pack needs the single entity. She understands that there is no greater body that could be molten together from the individual pieces.
Meanwhile Xolaani comes from another continent with a completely different understanding of unison. For her, everything and everyone needs to follow her orders not by choice, but by subjugation. Her end goal is to LITERALLY melt every being down into flesh slush and make herself the ultimate, singular entity. It's an amazingly compelling concept to have different kinds of unison clashing with each other and would give both reason to not only interact with each other but even turn into two macabre philosophy sisters that sit somewhere at a table arguing about what plan is better while sending out their respective armies and using the results as arguments. It wouldn't be a question of world domination anymore, but a question of ideals, played out in the most fucked way for anyone around that gets killed and torn apart just for someone to have a new compelling argument at the dinner table.
That description just makes Xolaani into riot’s splatoon telephone now.
Bio slush ✅
Loss of individuality ✅
I think Xolaani is way better summarized as a comparison to Elesh Norn, if you go into her comments and narratives she's not trying to make one singular flesh monstrosity, she's trying to enact peace via force, because to her every other option has been tested and failed. Individual free will = eventual violence chaos and pain, only she can be trusted with doing the thinking so just leave it all to her so you all stop fighting, yes, sleep child, all will be peaceful...
@@gvccihvcci You can argue for that general mentality/philosophy but her final transformation in the card art and her mechanics makes it pretty clear that the end goal is "everything is Xolaani, Xolaani is everything".
Her final form is a gigantic amalgamation of the aspect of justice, her base form, all the stuff that was killed to get her to "level up" and her mechanic is that anything summoned turns into more Xolaani, in return increasing in power the more HAS BEEN turned into xolaanis.
What da do- *shot*
0:31 what in the hecking frick is the dog do-
Can confirm, I got shot making the fanart of this joke
@@rainestorm7777 Wurf!
18:44 If I recall correctly it's because she was also designed with teaching the enemy on how to play against an assassin in mind (dev post on Naafiri's gameplay), so they made her incredibly telegraphed.
so they made her have counterplay in order to teach people how to play against other champs that....don't have the same level of counterplay?
Yep, going from 1+1 immediately to solving multivariate calculus problems. I don't fault the idea behind it but going from fighting Naafiri to Zed is...not the same.
Like, as an immobile mage main, i really like this way more than dealing with another hyper-mobile assissin that can burst me down faster than i can
@bkaneshiro14 yeah, but the problem is she became a thing wayyyy to late, if she was the first assassin then yeah it's a nice evolution in difficulty from Naafiri to to Zed. But her is Zed to Naafiri, so is basically hard mode that we all are used to to baby mode. If all other assassins had something of much delay as her than yeah she is fine. Nocturn is similar to her as, you do get some time to react to him. O wait he has a spell shield and can jump on me while low and not much of options to deal with. But besides of ult Nocturn is not that great with engaging without ult. Similar Rengar if he is not in jungle.
Besides all I like Naafiri, wish there lore was a bit more interesting.
purposefully crippling your champion is a great way to make sure noone will ever play it
Xolaani: Basically madara uchiha, wants to end war by assimilating people, except he uses a tree
Naafiri: "APES TOGETHER STRONG"
Naafiri's discovering the existence of society
I think Xolaani is way better summarized as a comparison to Elesh Norn, even down to the appearance. She isn't precisely all about "making a flesh pool" she is about doing whatever needs to be done, to ensure peace, and if that includes slavery and complete tyranny so be it, the ends justify the means (and at this point in her madness she believes there is NO other way to achieve peace, people are too evil/violent if given free will)
You made a counter point. APES TOGETHER STRONG 🐒🦍🦧
The meme fan arts are so cute like omg
Instead of having the dagger shatter, what they should’ve done is this: Since the pack all attacked the dagger, Naafiri’s consciousness was overwhelmed and essentially forced itself to scatter across the dogs, morphing the weapon to merge with everyone. That way it would still explain how Naafiri became a hive mind, or pack mind in this case.
Edit: I wrote this before watching the video…
Everybody always asks what the dog doin, but never how the dog doin. Go pet your dog.
The thing that baffles me the most is the Darkin Dagger shattering
It could have been really easy to just make it like, multiple hyenas/dogs grabbed the Dagger at once, causing all of them to fuse into Naafiri
What baffles me the most is that, after a cinematic full of symbolisms and metaphores representing her shattered state of mind, people still went to her bio and read the "Dagger shattering" thing literally. The lore change was just them spoon feeding the community.
The dogs have saved me from missing so many cannons
I don’t mind Naafiri is a Darkin, but the leadership and most powerful thing feels wrong. Make it so when she became a Darkin and went crazy she became overexcited and outgoing, like a dog, but she is a demigod that throws knives everywhere. When she became a dog it exemplifies it, she wants to run around, play, eat, and make friends but she is a giant knife dog causing destruction. She has her pack so she isn’t alone (that’s amumu’s shtick) but she wants to find her human, boss, companion, etc to give her loyalty (dog gimmick). If they wanna make a dog, make a dog.
i still love the idea that nafiri isn't the strongest darkin but THINKS they are which shows the ego that all the darkin think they are the strongest which is why they all fought for control cause the ego they all had was that they were the strongest and deserved to lead causing the infighting
It would be funny if all the darkin meet up again and they all saw naafiri and said: " Whos pet is this?"
I really hope this is the direction they take. She's just a silly doggy, not some world-ending threat.
I will forever defend bel 'veth's design and will take her over kai 'sa 2 any day >:o long live the giant goofy mantray
As for naafiri... ngl i still like her but at the end of the day she's just yuumi (aka a domestic animal with a fantastical feature), and my heart cannot deny yuumi, so why would i deny funne doggo?
However i really WISH riot did something more with her backstory! This was the first darkin who didnt had a human-ish vessel and a lot could've been done. But much like my beloved skarner she's stucked into a status quo that she'll be locked in unless riot decides to move her lore forward.
As for the "adapting parts of the animal she hunts thing", while it's a 10/10 idea, i fear that this could've make her silhouette even more confusing than what it is with the extra doggos, and since riot has to make money outta their champions i feel like this could lead to some problems..
I love Naafiri. I do feel like riot dropped the ball big time with how they marketed her gameplay. Mid lane is an awful role for her considering how much of her power rests into her long-range engages with W and R. I usually play her top, shove lane with her amazing wave clear, then start to roam mid or take grubs and influence the map. It makes for a really fun gameplay that fulfills the fantasy of being this whole pack of dogs roaming around looking for easy prey. The whole "Beginner assassin" was a huge miss. She has little skill transferance with other assassins due to having almost no escape tools, and she's a lot more weighted towards macro skill, and less micro, than all of them.
I think she's very unique and i hope riot plays to her strength in the future rather than try to retroactively fit her into what she already fails to do.
You know which lane better roams then top? You got it! Midlane xd imo she is fine role whise but her kit is just so cluncky just cause she needs to be a beginner champ just makes her feel kinda bad to play sometimes
8:01 Dude just turned into Fiddle for a split sec there
Naafiri is one of my favourite champions to play gameplay-wise, I really wish she had similar gameplay but as one of the other concepts, I mean look at the Targonian Retriever concept art, it's immaculate.
Same i love playing as her. Its just w+2q boom they dead. I like the affect when hitting the second q, i dont know why i just like it.
My head canon to everything is that Naafiri’s original kit was supposed to be that of Bel’Veth’s kit. Killing void creatures and monsters would allow you to get more pack mates, etc. Bel’Veth took that kit because her intended kit was taken for the A Sol rework. I always thought the flying manta ray seemed off to be an auto attacker and flying around shooting a void laser seemed to fit that fantasy more. The kit that naafiri ended up getting was just scraps from other designs.
In reality, this conversation kind of falls apart when we remember that Briar has a discarded kit from Naafiri, with this mechanic of getting out of control
@ I wasn’t aware that Briar had a discarded kit from Naafiri. I can totally see it. Makes me curious of how many “kits” exists for blank champions that they shuffle around until they settle on a final design.
@xZer033x I think this is a pretty common thing in this area of character creation, things can be discarded all the time, it makes sense that they revisit some concepts
@@xZer033xAnd that doesn't mean much, Jhin and Kindred were initially one and were split into two champions, and yet they are two of Riot's best champions.
Yeah but in design
A dog that talks
Is not darkin
The main thing I appreciate about Naafiri is that she's an introductory assassin I think champions like that for various roles in the game is important for getting new players into the game and can be a gateway for the role in general.
Never understood the hate for Naafiri. People were like “she’s just a dog” but that’s the same for Varus then. He’s just a human. In fact Yuumi gets the same hate too. Honestly it’s ok to have animals as champions they can bring more to the table.
I mean, many people to this day don't like Varus being reworked to be Darkin. He doesn't really look like one, that's why he need visual rework imo
@@supremeoverlordvader5552 nah its because its varus and not vaarus :)
Yeah and tbh aatrox is also basically just “a human with some extra demon-looking traits” so why are people so worked up about “a dog with demon-looking traits”
Think the hate comes from, as Nicky said, "she's just a dog SHOEHORNED INTO A DARKIN", when we have SO MANY DIFFERENT OTHER OPTIONS for her to be "just a dog". A targonian one like he showed. A celestial one. A freljordian wolf. A demacian or noxian hound. Even an ixtalian one, interacting with Nida and Neeko
I say it's because Naafiri is hella basic, story, design and gameplay.
The ONLY thing that is cool about her is the fact that she spawns more hounds, but even that was done by Elise with her spiders so Naafiri only appeal is the story which kinda contradicts the whole Darkin if I remember correctly because their weapons are close to indestructible, but a bunch of dogs bitting it shatter it?
So yeah, Naafiri just mid to a fault.
I love Naafiri, but I totally agree with your points. Especially not being interconnected at all with the other darkin. Oh, she (somehow) got torn apart by dogs? Why the hell was that not communicated to Aatrox in the story? Even if it was stupid and not elaborated on, her being torn apart like that could be such a conversation starter for the other darkin. Not really Varus, but what if Kayn or Zed were to try and break apart Rhaast to be used across the Shadow Order? What if Aatrox tried to split his consciousness enough to stop existing?
We really need something to further the darkin’s story. They’ve been stagnant for so long and so much has gone unexplained. I don’t need it to make sense. I’m fine with rule of cool. But I hate that they’re just being left to rot and only being brought out when Riot wants a red and grey champ who’s not Noxian.
Honestly, A targonian Pack leader doggo that has a pack of other targonian pups would have been hecking amazing
I genuinely didn't notice that her face in profile is the same shape as the dagger was, the only thing they changed was adding a smile
Personally, for me Naafiri is a 9/10. My only problem I have with her, is the gameplay, and specifically W with how short the range is and how long it takes to dash.
I actually really like Naafiri (lore notwithstanding). I think she's fun, I love champions with pets and I think she has way more build variety than most try to mess with. Ghostblade is really good for making roams and both that and Opportunity are good for getting out so you don't need to save the E. Hubris is awesome with her ult reset to keep her in the fight once that wears off. And aside from that, her W is a really scary and fun engage tool.
I'll say this much, I hope Riot doesn't end up reworking her like I think they said around the time it was announced that changes for Swain were happening. I really don't think she needs it.
Naafiri is a character I *want* to like: awesome concept, simple but effective gameplay (in concept), and a fun combo of cute but scary...
But yeah you articulated how I feel about her perfectly. Lore feels half-assed, gameplay feels clunky (LET HER FUCKING JUNGLE PLEEEEEASE), and too much of her character is devoted to the dog memes instead of the cool Darkin hive mind concept.
I always forget Naafiri exists. Honestly I don't know how they didn't just go for the pack of Noxian hunting hounds. Would have been better than "Darkin knife dog"
Yeah I was very excited when I heard of the pack mechanic, but in game the actual pack is so insignificant even Lulu's Pix feel more like having a separate companion as playable character.
I love Naafiri, I main her and lock her in for all my matches unless we need ap then Sylas. But yes I agree Naafiri bio and lore could've been done so much better I love her design and skin though i would like to see how hard a legendary for her would go.
The problem with Naafiri is she doesn't have any good lore or character development which drags her down hard and then we get her height of 7ft tall from a RiotRaptorr tweet
Since we can't change the past we have to work with what we we're given, If LOR or even a color story expands on her and gives her some more development to help establish her as an entity in the world maybe have her find Varus and have some story there
I do like her gameplay but i agree for an assassin she feels slow they nerfed her Ult movement speed and her damage is front loaded onto hitting both Q's, she's designed to be a beginner assassin which makes her engage and play style obvious but that shouldn't restrict her from having more mobility or a solid secondary damage option like majority of the other assassins
In my opinion where Naafiri is right not is fine we just desperately need an expansion on her lore and gameplay wise make her more agile give her E a 1 second less cooldown make her Ult bonus movement speed on initial permanent until her ult runs out and remove the bonus movement speed reduction when damaged by a champion doing something like that will give her the agility she lacks make her feel faster and it will bolster her thematic as this pack of dune hounds who chase you down endlessly, its like landing Briar ult and never hitting E, when Naafiri Ults she'll chase you down and shes fast enough to catch you no matter the distance, they beed a splash art that depicts her size as well shes a 7ft Darkin Dune hound yet she's portrayed as small in game and no splash represents her size
i love naafiri. im someone who has played a ton of all the fighters and assassins, zed and rengar both being in my top 10 mastery alongside kayn (more for rhaast than assassin but still). and i could go either way for the lore. i liked xolaani a lot already so i thought it was weird but it was whatever because it's not like every champ has to be 100% unique in every aspect (we have like two of everything almost; freljord berserkers, big knight loyal to their nation, mage with staff, mage with book, support with shield, etc), but the gameplay i think is phenomenal for naafiri. she is allowed to thrive unlike zed/rengar because she isn't as volatile as them. she doesn't have instant oneshots without counterplay as it's been a huge gripe within the community for YEARS. zed STILL retains a high ban rate despite literally being confirmed to be forced into a weak state because people simply do not like low counterplay assassins. i think naafiri just feels more like a properly functioning diver who builds assassin, much like how mundo is a juggernaut who builds tank. i love the super high apm stuff, i love the giga brain positioning stuff, i love the braindead oneshots, but above all of that, naafiri has the healthiest most balanced and straightforward kit of any ad assassin and so the gameplay is the best thing that came out of her release.
at least she still has a heal like all darkin should, seeing as how they're supposed to be known for their blood magic. VARUS just didn't get the memo for anything, bastard rebel darkin. >:(
My interpretation they were implying was that naafiri was a top contender in a head-on battle, but susceptible to trickery leading to her downfall. So in the end she isn't "The strongest". Now she played into her strengths by again feeding into her all or nothing mentality, now with the whole pack following her as one. But by being more of a carnal monster she also makes her weakness of being easily tricked even stronger. Thinking like this I think she's pretty neat, we just need more anecdotes.
I actually love the concept of a being that possesses/soul binds with people being changed based on what they paid up with. And really love a study in how animal brains and perspectives work differently from humans. It’s applying a science fiction lense to something we see as mundane; and it’s being done in a fantasy setting. I positively adore this powerful demon overlord gaining a new sense of empathy from an encounter with base beasts, and growing as a person from an unfortunate event.
The idea of another wolf champion might’ve brought me back for a hot second but the botched nature of her and the whole Darkin crap leads to a big ol’ “nevermind.” She’s cute though, that’s something.
I felt the exact same way about Naafiri - when they came out that she was going to be a Darkin Dog i thought it would be something along the lines of Dark Souls' Sif, and when she came out i forced myself to like her a LOT, since this was supposed to be THE monster champion we got
Now that we get Skarner (my grievances with him aside) I can finally allow myself to think her integration was badly thought-out and hope Riot thinks more deeply about the conceptual phase of champions
I adapted Naafiri for a "support" role with Dark Harvest back in season 13. FNAFing the hell out of squishy ADCs and supports and farming stacks upon stacks of DH from thiccer dudes was fun af, my only nemesis being Lux (nobody played Orianna support back then either).
Hey so personally I love Naafiri but I do want to say that her lore does suck, and I like playing her because she’s a dog but that’s nothing that’s added from being a darkin, she could’ve been any sorta dog and still given off the same energy. Anyways gameplay wise I love her, I think that there is a bit of a strategy with her for trying to get characters with knockbacks to use it before the go in before the complete counter. I have a lot of fun figuring out my go in and then getting to punish it once everything is set up perfectly. That being said the extra dogs don’t really add anything other than body blocking some cc here and there.
Hmm about gameplay, the dogs do the mayority of the damage lategame and she can delete a tank, so yeah i belive you are biased due to lore reasons, her gameplay is very fluid and she does delete people.
Indeed she can be aesaly countered with a syndra E and that but thats why the Q exist , 1000 cuts and all in, she is no zed or Talon she is more like a non- imidate engage champion until the oportunity stikes, preety much like a pack of wild dogs.
Anyone remember when the pack of dog used to be able to break her blade to pieces? Tbh if they kept it in it would have made it more fun for naafiri, sure it would make no sense for a bunch of canines to destroy a weapon not even the gods can, but it would emphasize how weak will naafiri is, it would add to the fact that she is a strong physical warrior like aatrox, but in mind she is inferior to even rhaast, cause as she have said, her mind has been scattered for too long and destroyed only to be calm when the pack was possessed. Instead of the pack destroying the blade like its a weak thing, have it destroyed because she was so mind broken and scattered brain that the prison that holds her cant even keep her in 1 piece, thats why it breaks at the sheer multitude of hosts touching it, cause to possess the body, darkin must have the stronger, more overwhelming will to out phase the current owner of the body, thats why aatrox can control an army size body, thats why rhaast is a lil baby bit- who cant even take over an orphan with knife tricks.
My point is maybe they could have done more with her, ik the darkin idea is an afterthought but riot can do alot with afterthoughts if they actually put their minds to it, and not another 200$ chroma bait
An idea that came to my head was if Naafiri was instead a much weaker darkin, but also that the durability of the weapons are somewhat proportional to the strength of said darkin. Aatrox and Xolaani would be nearly indestructible, while Naafiri was ripped to shreds by some dogs. Her story would be about coming to understand her own weakness, while realising the strength that came with being in a pack, in turn making her stronger now than she ever was.
Even in a vid about another champion smolder still gets dissed smh
just since you seemed to question it, yes a dog will eat a bird if it can get a hold of one.
My neighbors Chow caught a bird midflight and that was that for the bird.
Maybe a darkin weapon works like a prison when a darkin takes over a host they trade places one is in the body the other is in the weapon but the host lack of will and knowledge of blood magic means they stay inside the weapon forever. So not saying this is canon just speculation maybe the reason the dogs shattered the blade was because the number of minds was too much for the weapon to handle and yes the celestials tried everything to destroy the weapons but did they didn’t try using multiple hosts cause trapping the darkin was already a massive challenge and they didn’t wanna go through that again so the just hid them away. Take kayn for example when he goes blue rhaast is completely gone from the weapon sane as how the host is just dead. Of course a darkin like aatrox has the drive to alway assimilate a host. But for Naafiri that could be plausible reason she even shares dog mannerisms but that might just be riot. If she got a color story we’d have more info.
My headcannon is that Naafiri was an outcast of the Ascended because she believed that she was capable all by herself without help fighting back the void and one of the most powerful Ascended at that which lead to her imprisonment. Only then when she was finally split into a pack of dune hounds did she realize that in unity, the Darkin can become unstoppable. She is endlessly searching the Deserts of Shurima because she doesn’t know where the others have gone because she had no real attachments to the other Darkins. I guess her more “playful” characterization could be her just going insane after having her consciousness split in multiple beings or her just endlessly searching the desert and loosing hope.
I agree, how do you make a darkin character but don't incorporate the living weapon itself to the final design? That makes no sense. Also why monstrous jungle champion became dog, like they didn't even try to make her some monstrous dog like Cerberus with 3 heads and snake tail. Naafiri is just a dog with collar of blades. One of the weakest design tbh, they should put Xolaani instead to the league.
Man instead of Naafiri becoming part of the hive mind she just takes over them and fuses their body into a great cerberus beast, that would have been awesome! Really like her but she should be more than just bladed dog.
Yeah i was thinking
They could profit by coping SIF FROM DARK SOULS into League
But is just a dog also the design of melt-snakes and having 2 or 3 heads is cool
In fact even a 2 head dog is even better than a red dog, Ortos is a greek Monster brother of Cerberus and is just a 2 headed dog 😂
dark mane inviting you for a game ate the ennd of the video was so cute lol
In terms of gameplay execution what I think means the most is the part where she’s supposed to be a character who is equally an entire pack of dogs, yet in game it’s just one big dog doing 70% of the work that spawns in little dogs automatically
could you imagine if Naafiri and her pack fought Rek'sai and her brood for territory and food, that'd be awesome
It boggles my mind that they couldn't come up with lore for Naafiri as a Noxian when there's an entire section of Noxus' military dedicated to training Drakehounds. They very easily could have made Naafiri a hyper intelligent Alpha Drakehound. Maybe make her the end result of a Black Rose experiment, and tie her story together with Rell. It would be a really interesting ongoing story that all of the Black Rose's ambitions are starting to turn against them bit by little bit.
I came up with that idea in like...3 minutes, you cannot tell me the Riot lore team is so wholly incompetent that they had to default to making Naafiri a Darkin...
I did think he was going to cut to his death
I like her because 1 silly doggy of course and 2 is that the thought of going from single mindedness to a hive mind in such a short amount of time since darkin learn to assimilate as fast as they can to take over a host and continue forward. What really sold me on her character is the thought that she had to really lean in to and embrace the pack mindset or else she would go crazy, again going from one extreme to the other. Going from being alone trapped in a dagger to never being alone while possessing multiple bodies. Just thinking about how she had to cope is really interesting to me.
Before the item rework Naafiri jungle was my favourit thing to play. You would go goredrinker into full lethality and be completley unkilable. Please bring back goredrinker
I love the implications of Neeko becoming a dog and the enemies now have to count how many dogs Naafiri has
One way i could see Naafiri's lore being more interesting is if she was never near the strongest among the Darkin, physically or magically, but one of the more cunning, manipulating others to her side to compesate for her lack of actual power. It'd also be thematic with her daggers, she's a strategist who calculates and waits for the best time to strike, preferably in the back. But now that she's this pack, an apex predator, she's WAY more arrogant and willing to resort to brute force to get her way
I both like their own character designs her and belveth, I just think naafiri needed more work on her lore to give her a good home, I do also agree with the jungle statements, what’s your opinion on her skins
It's a crime we don't have any gameplay of that overwhelming, eldritch-like, amalgamation of maws and blades shown in her trailer.
I feel like that would be hard to do without having way too much visual clutter, then again league already has like shit tons of visual clutter so who knows.
What da do- ***BANG!***
If riot were to make another dog champion, it would be more expressive of loyal house dogs that follow orders from their masters and twist it into something of good intentions but blind to the consequences. the targonian dogs you mentioned for instance. im not a lore buff so it probably wont fit but something like that. creating shield walls or dragging the enemy slowly as he locks jaws and doesnt let go. a bruiser or tank type champ that peels for his team more while protecting the backline.
I like how deceptive her damage is. Everytime the first Q ability landed, it'll deal a thin stick of HP to which the enemy will always see it as very weak poke then try to advance and bully the lane. But then the second Q comes in and enemy just pooped themselves.
what gets to me is that Riot proudly proclaimed that Naafiri was a lore character like Yone. you know the person mentioned in Varus's color story? it was retconed it was Naafiri
would be cool if there was no main Naafiri, just the pack, with multiple small health bars similar to Kled. Less health = less dogs = less damage? or go the other way where if the members of the pack fall when taking damage that they then infuse to become a single big main Naafiri becoming stronger at low Hp. Definitely feel like they could have been way more creative
she is perfectly acceptable in the jungle though. They gave her some jungle-specific buffs a while ago that made her feel good to play there
Its really weird that you keep comparing naafiri to skarner considering skarner also has no plot relevance, no personality, no connections to anyone else and doesn't even have the memes to justify his existance, all the while sacrifing old skarner, one of the most important characters in piltover lore.
Old boomer the size of multiple citys that is gatekeeping a whole society by killing his followers vs desert dog
3:56 To be fair, darken weapons look like giant pieces of meat and bone.
the way she actually looks though is still I pretty cool dog design
Its not that Naafiri has too much counterplay, its that all her contemporaries don't have enough, so she sticks out.
So Xolaani is Viktor from Arcane s2? 7:55
Because Naafiri being oh so powerful is only told in her bio (written in her perspective) and in her voice lines, I like to believe that she only believes she is so powerful and could almost have lead the Darkin (all Darkin believe that of themselves, don't they?) and was in fact just another mad, power-hungry darkin all along.
Naafiri should be like yuumi, a fantastical animal with a twist
something i think could have been cool is if instead of naafiri being a darkin, she was instead an experiment of Vladimir's. like she could have been a dog that vlad found and experimented on and in doing so he created a dog that has the power of hemomancy, and you could even keep the pact thing with them just being conjured out of blood instead. i dont think this is a perfect solution (as i dont know about vlads lore and if that would even make sense for him to do that) but i think it would have let riot keep the demon dog thing they wanted but not ruin the first darkin we got post recon
I wish the summoning dogs and attacking with a lot of dogs was her main thing
as a guy that likes the lore of league and think that matters when i play a champ, i like naafiri just because i forget her lore and what she is supposed to be and i just like the gameplay without comparing it to other assassins, she totally IS messed up and especially on the jungle bit you talked about i absolutely agree but i just forget it and play the doggo and enjoy it.
i don't know why or how but it doesn't stop me for this champ
If you mean the change of the passive is a mini rework on zed you are mistaken, his mini rework got reverted because of LL Stylish
I'm sorry, they wanted a demonic dog champ... and didn't think of drakehounds?
Naafiri inspired a character in the story I’m currently writing cuz I wanted a demonic doglike character and seeing how poorly executed Naafiri was had me feeling challenged so now my indie comic is gonna have a mainstay doggo character. Thanks Riot!
I feel like Naafiri could accomplish her thematic fantasy if like yorick her abilities mark and make the lil dogs leap at a target. You could take this 1 step further and reduce individual doggo damage and make them bleed on hit. Every dog adds to the total of the bleed scaling with her lethality. This way you grant her a niche as a backloaded assassin. Which the pack tears you to pieces once she's on you. But you can cut her damage for counterplay because of the other stuff in her kit in addition to killing the dogs.
Her abilities already mark enemies for her dogs to attack. when you send a Q over and tag a champion all of her dogs zoom over and begin ripping into the champ. AA, and other abilities do the same making your pack attack the target for a few seconds, before they recall back to you. Although I'll be real when I say the idea of the dogs adding their own bleed to their attacks would be awesome and make her Q2 a lot more satisfying to land after a combo of attacks. But IMO they should reduce the damage her dogs take from Melee attacks as well. Any Melee champ can one tap em, at any rank, and maybe it would be cooler if when she got fed they couldn't just do that.
@exstreamgamer if they don't plan to make the dogs a threat I agree big time. But I think the pack should feel like a real threat. It wouldn't take from her simplicity either. Since her combos could remain the same. I just feel like she needs just a little more to be what she could be
How about "Nafiri's min was damaged by the void and then slowly broke apart more and more, so when Mayisha imprisoned the Darkin, Nafiri got bound to all of her daggers, not just one."
We even have a more animal Darkin with Naganeka too
Naafiri made me want EVEN HARD for more of the LoR darkins (even the ballsy ones)
I really expected Naafiri to be from Ixtal, would be cool Avatar doggo
Naafiri irks me to an extreme level. First of all her design just kind of feels like a level 25 wolf on a demon continent in a milquetoast mmorpg, and she could be much, much more.
What REALLY irks me though is that my power fantasy in games has always been characters who apply pressure on the map by splitting themselves into more than a single character. That's why I tried to learn Lost Vikings in HOTS and in dota2 I played meepo and arc warden (for the uninitiated meepo permamently splits himself into almost identical copies of himself but if a single one of them dies they all die, and arc warden creates a single copy that is truly identical and can even use item actives and also can die safely), I liked other "summoners" there too for similar reasons, especially Chen but that's a bit of a different story.
In league the closest I have to that fantasy is Yorick (and I guess old mordekaiser with a dragon pet however this doesn't exist anymore sadly, Ivern doesn't really give me as much of this magic for some reason), I even have Yorick in my top 3 mastery leveled character because of that. However his control is *extremely* limited. He doesn't really feel like "many characters" archetype, but a summoner, and his summons can only either follow him or int down the lanes (seriously the maiden loves going down under turret and dying that way, it's frankly a bad idea to let her go in 90% of situations I'd say, you'd do a better job split pushing by just pushing with her and then immediately leave, it's safer and quicker).
So when naafiri got announced I got really hyped because they described it as my gameplay fantasy, what more they said they had something *similar* as a concept for Skarner but they decided to opt out because naafiri was already a thing. I didn't expect anything quite on a scale of an RTS unit control because of league limitations but I expected some control. However her dogs... are kind of just there. To me they always felt more akin to malzahar crabs rather than anything that makes you think in a completely different way about how you approach the game.
And now I know damn well that because naafiri """""fits""""""" this niche I ain't getting anything even remotely close to that for years, if ever because this game runs on spaghetti code and these characters sadly often end up extremely problematic. My disappointment is immeasurable and my archetype is forever ruined.
Naafiri's okay to play. But Zed's more fun. Naafiri's got some cool mechanics. But Talon does it better. Her ult is quite invasive although useful. But Rengar does it better. The only thing Naafiri has for herself is the dogs, then again Yorick and Malzahar can and WILL use them better. Like Nicky said, she could be deleted out of the game and nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing would change. She's a waste of space all things considered.
I mean can't you say that for like a good chunk, maybe ~40% of the cast?
@Lolamy oh yeah for sure. There are some real forgettable and useless one out there but I wouldn't go as far as 40%.
@@camimi7782 I gotta be out here fighting for my gurl naafiri i mean she's been my pfp for like a year now lol. but yeah maybe not 40%, maybe around like 5-10%
13:01 It probably took you a second to kill him there because of the support item he had. It reduces damage for like 2 seconds and I think slows when the shield/bubble thing bursts.
I just wish she was more badass
I find it weird how instead of making a known character from the lore with already established connection to the others like Corina or Xolaani, Riot instead decides to make an entirely new, never heard of before champ that has vague similarities to the characters like Renata and Naafiri.
I wonder if Naafiri started as a Bakai champion which turned into a Darkin because why not
Welcome to modern league where everyone and their mother is a tragic hero
Crazy how the dog pack corrupted the darkin
If the whole “pack assimilation” idea you suggested was implemented, it would essentially be a revival of pre-rework Mordekaiser, right? Bc his whole thing was getting the spirits.
who let the dogs out?
If they just sticked with the desert dogs just biting without breaking the blade. It would be fine than having them break it
adding on what you said about Naafiri gameplay: I feel there's a huge lack of sound or visual feedback when you hit Q. For the main damage source and a spell that has different outcomes if you hit once or twice (and, as you said, is slow) there isn't appropriate feedback!!! When you hit Morgana Q, there's such a good sound and that adds so much about how you feel when playing her - Naafiri lacks that. Also, there was a lot opportunity to add this feedback, make her bark if you hit once and howl if you hit twice or smth!!
I think Naafiri's only issue to me is the wind up on her W being as long as it is, and so easily blockable too. She is a threat when she gets going, and her ult having the sound to signify it makes sense. But it feels absolutely horrendous as a Naafiri player to be so easily stopped by one chunky mfer stepping in the path by accident (or purpose but lbr, its usually an accident). If her e had a bit more to it as far as helping her get back out, or if her w was faster or.. idk. something. She's the most fair assassin to go against at the very least, but if youre a squishy with literally no cc, you still die to her 1v1 because yeah. she's still an assassin. She's in a weird place tbh.
I take her "most powerful darkin" lore to be more of an ego thing on her part, like why else would the celestials not even bother with her after sealing her away? Just makes so much more sense to me. And fits the lore of them all being egotistical arrogant beings. Like the audacity of this dog fr fr.
I still only play Naafiri on ARAM though. She feels pretty tough to do well on in norms if the enemy has a singular brain cell and counters the w engage. It's oddly easier to get picks in ARAM I find. Might have to do with my playstyle though I dunno. I think her W could use some adjusting but i like her skill based q, like if you miss it's obvious. (Saying the first hit doesnt do damage is a little disingenuous though, it does. It's just slow DOT damage. the second hit makes all of the DOT hit at once.)
Naafiri is really cool to me because she is such a slow assassin. I don't feel mean when playing her because there's so much counter play. So it feels more fair.
I know they want to spread the Darkin over the roles, but I still wish she could be played top lane a built more bruiser
mind extending the date for the snake lady
Yes I have been looking forward to being used. Yes I have been, am fire, eyes buttered, my savior. Its hard to describe how im tip tappity tappity tap at the moment. Im iron, actually, 9 mm pacifier.
Her kit is actually great for jungle the only infuriating thing about it is the dogs taking the aggro and stopping any attempt to pull camps.