Cain's Q is a little on the strange side. It doesn't work as skill shot, but as a homing mechanism. He gains a small amount of speed during his charge, but the main point of it all is to use the enemy's retreat against them. If an enemy is running away and you have him locked on with Q, while he's running away, you're just plowing straight through minions, like a human bulldozer. And not only that, but you're always on their tail. So if you're in a jungle, you can never lose track of them, and your allies can basically use you as a compass. But a important factor is where to use the Q. If you're in the middle of using Shield Shock, you have to know when you're going to need to pull out of it, like when the enemy lures you into a turret or their allies.

Sorry this took so long, things got really busy over the past month.

So from reading your comments about how this ability works, I have a couple issues. First, you should probably reword the description to say something about the fact that he follows the target. Right now it sounds like Maokai's W, which is more of a dash than a follow, even though it is homing. Speaking of following, how exactly does it keep you following them? Does it just use normal pathing? What if the target flashes over a wall? You implied that you can cancel the move; do you do that by casting again? If so, you should probably put that in the description as well. Why does it only silence enemies you run through, but not the target? Or if it does, does that mean the target takes both sets of damage? What exactly does "Knockback Force Width" mean? Is that the distance you and the target are pushed? If so, is that combined or is it 100 units each?

Hmm, this sounds basically like Rammus's W and E combined into a single spell. Might want to reduce something in here to bring it more in line with other taunts (specifically Rammus and Shen; everyone knows Teemo's taunt is OP).

Scaling seems slightly low on this (compare to Lee Sin's W, though it should be lower than that since he doesn't typically get AP). Other than that, it looks like a good protective spell.

3 second AoE blind/silence is pretty powerful, a little too much so for that short a cooldown. I would either reduce the duration of the CC or increase the cooldown. How big is the AoE, btw? What happens if the target moves out of range before the channel is up? Damage seems a little low for an ultimate, especially the scaling.

I am not surprised you have had issues balancing this; free stat passives are notoriously hard to balance (Riot, specifically Xyph, commented on this as well). Have you noticed how much Kayle, Jax, and Vlad have fluctuated and/or been remade? The problem with them is that either they scale extremely hard into late game, or they're basically negligible. In this case, I think the MR is pretty good, but the health leans toward the latter. Lets say you get 300 Armor, you would be getting 80 MR and 200 HP. 200 HP is not much, so I would either reduce the MR and up the HP, or just remove the HP completely. Personally, I would probably rework it entirely, but that is up to you.



I have quite a few technical comments, so bear with me.

• First, when I read the first sentence, my mind forms a picture as soon as you say "white suits", which is completely different from what I find out you meant when I continue on to "of armor." I would simply say "shining white armor" or something, and leave out the "suits" entirely, unless you want the mental picture of Businessman Cain (Corporate Cain?).

• It should be "fighting for the honor", not "in".

• You don't need the second "Cain" so soon after introducing his name, just say "He".

• Unless no one knew about the Shields during his time as leader, it should be "long since forgotten".

• The word "faction" IMO doesn't really fit with what you are describing, unless they are actually autonomous and/or at odds with the rest of Demacia. "Division" or "arm" would fit better.

• It should be "bore" rather than "bared", and why would the fact that the shield was the only thing on their left be significant? Would you expect them to carry something in addition to a giant shield?

• Would they use anything other than "strong" magic?

• Based on the rest of the sentence, I think you mean Jarvan III "disbanded" the Shields, rather than "dismissed".

• To be consistent, it should either be "had fought against and (had) fallen to" or "fought against and fell to".

• Were the Shield's actually "born, raised, and trained...", but they didn't live up to their upbringing, or were they believed to have been "born, raised, and trained", but weren't actually?

• In "Cain stood alone to", the "to" should either be "against", "before", or something like that.

• It should be "his armor began to morph" instead of "had begun".

• There should be a comma instead of a semi-colon after "closed tight".

• "He thought to have heard a voice" doesn't really make sense, since it basically means he decided to hear a voice; it should probably be "he thought he heard a voice" or something similar.

Phew, now on to the actual content. Why would the Shields be "long forgotten" if it has only been seven years? Why would he join the League if he's trying to go after his former comrades? Is one of the current champions an ex-Shield? You have some good background with the Shields and the transformation, but his reason for joining the League doesn't really make sense, or if there is a better reason, it is not apparent. It is rather long for a bio; I would suggest condensing this down, and putting the extra info into his judgement.

Overall: A unique champ with a well defined theme, though perhaps slightly OP. He has quite a bit of CC, but since the Taunt is the only hard CC, it's a bit more manageable. I do think that having two silences is redundant though; I'd probably remove the silence from his Q, since it isn't really necessary to the ability. Other than that, he's got a pretty good kit, and would fill his role fairly well.

Wow..... I just became really overwhelmed when I saw this reply. Thanks for your decent feedback, and I'll be sure to make all the changes that are found necessary. For now, let's see if I can answer some of your questions.

Q: Cain follows the targeted enemy, so it's not just a simple dash. Also, the knockback width is the term for distance the target is knocked back. Both the enemy AND Cain are knocked back 50 each, making the total distance between them 100. I also agree with your suggestion with removing the silencing.

W: I know it sounds kind of basic, but I always felt that each champion should have at least one basic ability. Though it would help if you were to recommend what about the ability that I should "reduce".

E: In terms to the shield amount, keep in mind that it's shielding both Cain AND a ally, as to Morgana's shield which only affects one person. I took that into account, which is why the shield amount is slightly low.

R: The purpose of the ultimate was more for it's CC rather than damage. I'll see to increasing the cooldown. As for the size of the AoE, I think it would be around 150. I'm a little sketchy about the distance measurements, so I'll look into it a bit more.

Innate: Yeah.... this one been a lot of trouble for me. I want to keep this innate, that much is certain. But I just can't seem to find the right numbers that would fit for everyone. The amounts began to shift down, then back up, then down again. The main point of the innate was to have Cain be strong to both armor AND MR. The health was just something extra, though maybe it was never needed. I just have to think about this for a bit.

Lore: I've never had someone go deep into the flaws of the lore before, so I was pretty surprised to read this. The thing is, when I wrote this lore, I had little information on the whole LoL story line. I just wrote what I thought would be acceptable, though it seems that I still have a lot to learn. My biggest issue was how big the I made the lore, compared to the two paragraph, straight to the point lore that I always read. I just get so detailed that if I were to try to shorten it, it would just feel bland or just plain confusing. I feel that once I get to working on the Judgement, I'll have a little bit more freedom. I'll no doubt fix the grammar errors and typos that you mentioned (I laughed and the thought of Corporate Cain). I'm still a bit of an amateur writer.

Let me just try to answer as much of your questions about the lore as I can.

The Shields were trained in the ways of honor and bravery. The fact that Cain was the only one who stood against the Darkness proved that he was the only true shield knight.

I stated the placements of a Shield knight's shield and gauntlet as a form of visual aid, nothing more.

The Shields use their shields ands gauntlets as weapons as well as their magic. Their what some people may call rune knights, warriors who use both the art of combat as well as the art of magic.

When the Shields were disbanded, people slowly began to forget who they were as the years went by. They were meant to be sort of the military police of Demacia, constantly marching through its streets. As the people no longer saw them, they begin to question if they ever existed, or perhaps they wished to forget the Shields after they've been dishonored by their cowardice (This was something I didn't take well into consideration. I would probably feel better if I knew exactly when the war between the war with Demacia and Noxus began. I would have the Shields be one of the first groups formed in the Demcian military, and then have them forgotten between then and present day).

Cain joins the League to gain entry into the Institute of War to fill in on what he missed during his disappearance. In the Judgement, I was thinking of having him find out that the Shields were disbanded and then decide to fight against the Dauntless Vanguard, hoping to find his Shield brothers on the battlefield. Another reason for him to join the League may be to learn how to control his newfound dark powers, and use it to help him in his vengeful quest.

Hopefully I answered most of your questions.

Thank you so much for all of this feedback. Cain's my very first concept, so I expected it to be full of gaps. But I get some really good feedback from people, and that really makes me feel like this could be something I could get into (especially since I dream to get into game designing.). I be sure to make all the necessary changes. Again, thank you so much for taking the time to type all of this out. If you have any concepts of your own, I'd be more than happy to review them.

*Updated!* Made all the changes you recommended. Now if only I can shorten that Lore....

This champion sounds pretty cool from a character design standpoint, and I could see myself playing a tanky AP champ like this. But his abilities would probably need some tweaking:

I'm a little confused as to why this skill knocks Cain back also, since its purpose is to allow Cain to close the gap to his enemy. The fact that it's homing and can also do AoE damage is a little worrying; maybe it should do less damage for each enemy he passes through? (just the charge part, the shield bash should stay the same)

This ability is like two of Rammus' skills in one so it might be a little bit OP. I think having built in damage reflection is a little much.

Looks good to me. Can he cast it on himself like Lee Sin?

So if I understand this correctly, he throws the orb at a target and it expands on contact with the target, creating an AoE. Does the AoE stay in that location or does it follow the affected target? Either way, having both blind and silence on the same skill is definitely OP. Between those two CCs together the affected targets are totally helpless (can't attack or cast spells), and since it's AoE it could potentially shut down the entire enemy team with one ability. The fact that it does damage too is just icing on the cake. I'd say remove one of those CCs from the effect, maybe it could silence the main target and blind the surrounding ones or something like that.

Stat conversion passives are boring, but at least this one fits the character.


Overall I like the concept, but I think the abilities would have to be adjusted a little bit.

Then I would suggest changing "Knockback Force Width" to "Knockback Distance", to make it clear and more consistent with other spell descriptions. Also, 50 units is not all that much (Mao's Q is 4 times that), so the knockback would really only be useful as an interrupt. Also, you didn't explain how you cancel this spell (e.g. stop following if they get into turret range), or say whether the target takes both sets of damage. If it takes both, it's kind of high at early levels. If it only takes the latter, it's kind of low at later levels.

I wasn't saying it was basic, I was saying it is essentially 2 spells in 1. I refrained from suggesting what to reduce because I don't know what you think the core aspect of this spell is. Is it the taunt, the damage reduction, the damage return, or all three? If the latter, I would just tone everything down: the taunt duration, the damage return, and the damage reduction. If it's only 1 or 2 of those things, I would reduce or remove the third.

Keep in mind that Morgana's shield also blocks all CC for the duration. I compared it to Lee Sin's shield because it is the closest existing spell to this one (since it also shields both him and an ally).

Hmm, 150 is pretty small. You would have trouble getting anyone else except for the initial target, even if it didn't have a 2 second channel. I would increase the range on that.

Fair enough.

Look at the core concept of this champ: he was a paladin (essentially) who was abandoned by his comrades, captured and transformed by the enemy, and sent back to take vengeance. How much of the lore you've written is necessary for the reader to get that basic idea? Do they need to know what he said when they abandoned him? There are a lot of places where you could condense a paragraph into a few sentences and still get most of the info. The specifics are what you put in the judgement (so don't just delete anything, save it for the judgement).

OK, then I was going to say you don't need the "believed to have been", but I see you removed it already.

I was simply commenting on the "nothing but", but I see you fixed that as well.

Again, I was just mentioning that the word "strong" was unnecessary, but you've already fixed that.

Ah, now that makes sense: they've been forgotten because no one wanted to remember them. You should mention that, whether directly or more subtly, at least in the Judgement.
But are any of the Dauntless Vanguard champions? If he wanted to fight them, wouldn't he go directly to Demacia?
This would make a little more sense; you should mention it.

You asked for a review, I gave you one.

I am still ironing out the kinks in my most recent suggestion, Desaan, if you want to have a look.

There are several existing champs with ults that completely shut down enemies in an AoE (Galio, Sona, Amumu, etc.). At least the targets can move while silenced/blinded.

Thanks for the reply. Here's what I have to say in response:


Q: The main purpose of Cain's Q was to help if you're being chased, which is why I also decided to have Cain be knocked back as well to increase the gap between him and his enemy. I only added the homing if one would want to use Q to farm minions and such.


W: I understand that it does seem to be a combination of Rammus' skills (mainly because it was inspired by Rammus). Just keep in mind that if this were to be used on like an AP champion, it would do extremely little damage since the damage is a fraction of what is dealt to you, not to mention the fact that the damage to you is also reduced. This skills can be OP against AD champions, but UP against AP champs.


E: Yes, he's able to cast him on himself, though he would receive the same amount of shield as he would if he were to cast it on an ally.


R: The AoE doesn't stay, nor does it follow. It's pretty much just a huge shock wave. In terms of the CC being OP, I stand by Cryypter's statement that there are a lot more OP CC ultimates.


Innate: I know it seems kind of boring and simple but it's this passive that pretty much makes people want to play Cain as a tank.

I like the default skin but as I was reading through it I imagined he would be a bit stockier. Carrying all that heavy armour and shield would require a large amount of leg/back strength.

Also, momentum-based question. It says that on impact with his Q that he and the enemy champion are knocked away from each other but if he's throwing all his weight behind his shield then on impact one of two things will most likely happen.

Scenario 1: He hits the opponent, crushing them and plowing through/over them.

Scenario 2: He hits them and on impact plants his feet, sending them flying while he slides to a stop shortly after impact.

Also, if there is some degree of Ability Power in this attack, would it be that his shield is somehow generating power as he charges(i.e. magical power charge) that causes an explosion on impact, which would then make a bit more sense towards both of them being flung in opposite directions?

It's supposed to be sort of an inner strength thing, to show that you don't have to be a huge muscle man to carry heavy armor. Plus there could be some cases to where armor is strong, yet lighter than it seems.