Zhi, the Rejuvenated Monk
"A second chance should not be wasted."
Lore
The Shojin Monastery in Ionia was home to the peaceful but fierceful monks. Zhi was the eldest monk of the monastery, he pondered around the Monastery with the help of his staff, covered up by his large but elegant cowl. Everyone respected him as he had been responsible for the majority of all of their training, but it was easy to see his strength was slowly declining. When he felt it was time, Zhi gave his final blessings and goodbyes and started his final pilgrimage into the Ionian mountains.
While making his way up the mountain paths to find his final resting place, he felt a strong magical presence from nearby. He turned to notice a small opening in the side of the mountain, intrigued by the power he could sense, he made his way into the lightless cave. He travelled deeper for hours but slowly he made his way through. As he approached what felt like the epicentre he collapsed, his decrepit body had finally given into the immense power. He laid on the floor, content with his final stop. A bright glow began to emerge beneath him, he felt himself become engulfed by the warmth of the glow. The once darkened cave was now a bright white, encompassing everything and then in an instant it was gone. Zhi found new strength within himself, a dank cave was no fitting resting place, he stood up and began shuffling back to the entrance. He hastened his pace, finding little use his staff he strapped it to his back and found himself now moving at a speed he had not moved at for decades. When he emerged from the cave he ran to a nearby waterfall to catch his reflection. He recognised the man looking back at him, it was himself from 80 years prior. He had been gifted a body of youth, a body which he could finally use for the grand knowledge he had learnt during his life. This gift could not be wasted, he felt the need to share it with the world. Intent on reaching the Institute of War he began running back down the mountain path, he had a great distance ahead of him and would not stop until he had reached his goal.
“Respect your elders young ones, or it could be your last mistake.”
- Zhi
Appearance
Zhi stands as tall as possible, fully taking advantage of his new body. His muscular body is covered by a white cowl with a golden trim, he also dons a dark blue chest of sacred armour which has the ionian crest engraved on it. One arm is covered by the cowl, while the other is bare showing his tattoos which are in a similar style to Lee-Sin’s. A hood covers his head, but beneath it he is bald with a long elegant black beard. He carries around his old staff on his back as a reminder to not waste his new body.
- Animations
- Walk/Run: He walks upright with his arms crossed to appear conserved. As his movement speed increases he adopts a fighting stance and starts running.
- Attack: He fights with the palm of his hands to minimise the amount of damage he takes from punching. He alternates between hands during his attack animation and if he crits he attacks with both hands.
- Emotes: During his joke he returns to his old man posture by bending over and shuffling around. During his taunt he sits on the floor and begins to meditate. His dance is influenced by his old man traits, but how modern day considers granddads to dance, to stay consistent with other modern day dances champions have.
Base Stats
- Health: 370 (+78)
- Health Regen: 7.5 (+0.7)
- Mana: 280 (+60)
- Mana Regen: 6.9 (+0.6)
- Range: 125
- Movement Speed: 335
- Attack Damage: 50 (+3)
- Attack Speed: 0.625 (+2.5%)
- Armour : 14 (+3.3)
- Magic Resist: 30 (+1.25)
Skills
Passive - Retrospection
Zhi’s basic attacks reduce the target’s vision and their shared vision by 8% for 2.5 seconds. This effect can stack up to 5 times.
- Animation: Enemies affected by Retrospection have a dark mist appear in a halo around their head. The mist increases in density as the stacks increase.
Q - Scatter Staff
Range - 800 Cooldown - 18/17/16/15/14 Cost - 65/75/85/95/105
ACTIVE: Zhi throws his staff to a target location, knocking back enemy units away from the point of impact and dealing magic damage to all enemies hit. The staff will remain at the location for 5 seconds giving all nearby allies increased attack damage.
- Magic Damage: 60 / 95 / 130 / 165 / 200 (+50% AP)
- Damage Radius: 650
- Knockback Distance: 300
- Aura Range: 900
- Attack Damage: 8 / 12 / 16 / 20 / 24
- Animation: Zhi grabs the staff from his back and javelin tosses it to the target location. When the staff lands it sends out a shockwave to show the knockback area and emits a low pulsating white light while it remains in the location.
W - Sharing Resources
Range - 850 Cooldown - 18 Cost - 70/90/110/130/150
PASSIVE - After 5 seconds of being alone, Zhi gains 10% increased armour, magic resist and movement speed. This bonus ends if Zhi takes damage.
ACTIVE - Zhi shares his knowledge with those he trusts, granting target ally 50% of his Armour and Magic Resist for a short time. If the target takes damage while the buff is active they are granted 30% increased movement speed for the rest of the buff duration.
- Buff Duration: 4s / 4.5s / 5s / 5.5s / 6s
- Animation: When the passive activates, his armour gains a slight golden outline around the details of the pattern. When the active is used on an ally, the ally gains a golden outline around their character model which starts bright and slowly fades as the buff runs out.
E - Burden of Knowledge
Range - 700 Cooldown - 14/13/12/11/10 Cost - 60
ACTIVE - Zhi enchants target location for 6 seconds, dealing 2% of maximum health in magic damage each second to every enemy in the area. Enemies affected are also marked, if they leave the enchanted area the mark will detonate dealing magic damage and slowing the enemy by 30% for 2 seconds.
- Range: 750
- Mark Damage: 50 / 90 / 130 / 170 / 210 (+60% AP)
- Animation: Zhi adopts a fighting stance and creates a circle with his fingers. The target location gains a golden hue which emits glowing particles which rise and fade away. Enemies are marked with an simplified ionian crest, when the mark detonates the crest shatters and falls downwards onto the enemies.
R - Grand Revelation
Cooldown - 120/110/100 Cost - 100/150/200
ACTIVE - Zhi lowers his hood and lifts a beacon above his head, granting vision to the area around him to allies for 5 seconds. All enemies in the area take magic damage and any enemies that were revealed by the spell are silenced.
- Range: 1200
- Magic Damage: 200 / 350 / 500 (+80% AP)
- Silence Duration: 1s / 1.25s / 1.5s
- Animation: Zhi’s hood lowers revealing glowing eyes while at the same time he creates a beacon of light with his left hand above his head. Fog of war is lifted in the area and any enemies damaged are struck from a golden blast from above (similar to smite).
Tarot Card Explanation
Hermit[1]
Zhi is based off of the Hermit card, when designing his character and kit I tried to revolve around the themes of the card as well as the appearance. By designing him for the Support role I was able to use the Hermit tarot theme of sharing knowledge with others and apply them to his skillset. The theme of isolation was used his character design for his W passive and also the feeling of isolation his passive can give enemy champions. His lore was written to include his journey alone and his return to share his knowledge with the world. The visual design shown on the Tarot card is used for inspiration for his older look mentioned in the lore. I wanted to stray away from the traditional appearance of a feeble man but still use it as a base. The end result is a man who you would not consider the traditional hermit, but stripped back the themes and qualities still remain.
Champion Design
Role: Zhi was designed to be played in the support role, his low damage and higher cooldowns mean that while capable of playing in other lanes, the support role still suits him best. His support style of play focus on protecting the carries while enabling them in multiple ways to achieve their goal.
Skill Design
When designing the skillset I looked into the types of playstyles other support characters had and broke them down into a list of qualities. After breaking them down I looked into how many of these qualities each character had, the majority had 5, while some of the strongest supports had 6 (Thresh, Lulu, Taric, Zyra).
The qualities I decided to base his skills on were: Buff, Debuff, Crowd Control, Peel, Wave Clear and Vision. When writing the skills I wanted to have them similar to existing skills by making the text relatively simple allowing for quick understanding.
Passive - I wanted his passive to be focused around a type of isolation while at the time I still wanted him to have some sort of debuff. By combining the two the passive is able to create a feeling of isolation for the target. The passive has an aggressive use, to help single out targets, while the defensive use is to help defend your carries by limiting what their attacker can see. Both situations can give major advantages to your teammates, allowing them the opportunity to outplay the enemy.
Q - Scatter Staff was designed to be his major form of CC and peel. The purpose of using the staff was to go alongside his lore, the fact he’s still using his reliable staff even though he could cast it aside. The skill can be used to protect the carry and give them the AD buff or used to stop enemies from escaping. The skill is also designed to co-ordinate well with his E skill, depending on the use of scatter staff the enemy could be forced out of the E area to trigger the mark, keeping the enemy from leaving to get the maximum damage or even forcing the enemy back.
W - This skill was designed to be his main “support” style spell as well as fitting with the Hermit card’s trait of Sharing Knowledge. The sharing of armour and magic resist buff allows players to build in different ways depending on what they and their team need. A heavy AP team would require heavy magic resist, by letting Zhi purchase the resists his carries can continue building damage and have Zhi buff them at important times.
E - The E skill was designed mainly to be a form of wave clear to help their allies farm and push out waves when needed. This style of play is important for lane control, having it deal damage over time allows the Carry to clear easily by letting the minions get lower on health gradually and lowers the chance of heavy burst stealing the CS. The marking system was designed to peel and to make the player think about where to put the skill, placement greatly affects how well the skill will do. The skill is mostly used as a deterrent, putting it in a choke could cause players to choose alternate routes to avoid the slow. Placing it on your carry forces the enemy to take damage if they want to focus them, while also giving your carry extra time if they want to retreat due to the slow.
R - This skill is designed to use multiple traits from the Hermit tarot; silence, sharing knowledge, his lit lantern and casting off his cowl to rejoin the world. The main purpose of the skill is to give massive vision, this can be used to scout a dangerous area ahead, or chase enemies which are using fog of war to escape. The silence is a tool to catch enemies which have been shown off guard, giving the player and their allies a chance to lock them down before they try to escape, its also a nice way to stop ambushes.
Thanks for reading, if anything seems a bit off let me know. Extra information will be added when completed but I wanted to avoid posting on the final day again as I wasn't able to get a lot of feedback.
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