For those of you who don't know, I am a HUGE fan of the game League of Legends, developed by Riot Games. About a week or two ago, the wonderful people at Riot Games began revealing information about the new Champion, Orianna. The initial information was simply a reference to a techmaturgical (technological magic) ball, along with a sketch of said ball. My interest was immediately piqued, and I closely followed all new information that was released. As soon as I saw what her abilities were going to be, I knew I had to have her. So, I have been saving up my points from the past week and a half so that, no matter how much she cost, I would be able to buy her. I was extremely nervous when I found out she had been released today, and I only 5400 points. If she had cost anything but the top tier cost, I could get her, but there was still that chance. I anxiously waited as my client patched, seeming to take far longer than usual. As soon it was done, I opened it, logged into the store, and found that she was not, in fact, priced as a top tier. I was overjoyed, and I bought her and immediately began to play her. What follows are my initial impressions of her, both good and bad.
First of all, I would simply like to say that she is one of my all time favorite champions, and I have only played her once. However, I knew she was going to be before I even played her. I had created a custom game, and was at the character select screen. I clicked on her portrait, and like all champions, she spoke. I actually think I felt giddy, which, anyone who knows me well enough, knows doesn't happen for just anything. Her voice was reminiscent of GLaDOS from Valve's Portal series. Her voice was obviously female, but also had a metallic, hollow feel to it. The previews Riot had given of her had mentioned that she seemed to the other champions to be nothing more than a hollow shell of a person. Little did I expect to get that feeling myself simply from hearing her.
After playing her, my initial impressions were only reinforced. Her abilities suit her very well, and I believe they add something to the team that has been missing until now. Her main form of attacking is through a device called The Ball. Orianna's abilities take form as commands to the ball. Her Command: Attack sends the ball flying off to a point, damaging all enemies in its path. Her Command: Dissonance releases an AOE effect around the ball that deals good amount of magic damage and then creates a field which slows enemies by 45% and speeds up allies by the same percentage, though this effect diminishes over time. Her Command: Protect attaches the ball to herself or an ally, shielding her/him from a certain amount of damage, and passively increasing the armor and magic resistance of whomever it is attached to. Her ultimate ability, Command: Shockwave, causes the ball to release an AOE effect which deals magic damage, and then after a short delay pulls all enemies in the radius towards the ball.
Using her abilities can be very tricky, but it is well worth it. She is definitely one of the most difficult champions I have ever played, because you have to focus not only on your own placement, but the placement of the ball as well. However, your enemies have to do the same thing. Because of this, she has excellent lane controlling ability, if she is played well. Another of thing that makes her difficult is understanding how her abilities combo together. Her abilities, on their own, do a decent amount of damage. However, if you understand how to combo them together correctly, your damage output is dramatically increased. For anyone who actually wants to play her, I am going to post a few combos that I think everyone should know.
1. Attack-Dissonance: This combo sends the ball towards a point, dealing damage to all enemies it touches, and then releases the AOE damage at that point. This is a great way to kill an enemy in a turret, as they have very little time to react.
2. Attack-Protect: One of the more interesting aspects of Orianna's Command: Protect, is that, as the ball flies towards its target, it actually deals damage to enemies it passes through equal to a percentage of the shield's strength. In this way, it actually acts as a weaker Command: Attack. This combo allows you to very quickly hit multiple opponents, making it great for taking out minions.
3. Protect-Dissonance: This combo, shields the target and then creates the movement enhancing/slowing field. This makes it great for allowing Orianna or an ally to escape from enemies, or allows them to chase an opponent more easily, as they can turret dive more effectively with the shield.
4. Attack-Protect-Shockwave-Dissonance: This combo is a team killer, but only works if you have a tank. You initiate with Attack, getting some damage in. Then, use Protect on the tank, allowing them to survive a little longer. This works especially well with tanks like Amumu. Then you use Shockwave to pull all enemies towards the tank, allowing for AOE damage to be more effective. Finally, you finish with Dissonance to slow any survivors to finish them off.
These are obviously not all the combos you can do, but they are some that I think are incredibly important to remember. Just keep in mind exactly what each ability can do, and you should be good.
There are a few other good points I would like to talk about. For one thing, the range of her abilities is very impressive. She has one of the largest ranges I've seen, which makes her great for fighting around turrets, as well as chasing enemies. Also, the cool down times of her abilities is very reasonable, making it quite easy to spam Command: Attack.
Now, as with every Champion, Orianna does have her downsides. For one, she is incredibly mana hungry. Her attacks don't necessarily use a relatively large amount of mana, considering Morganas abilities generally cost more than 100 mana, but they are used very frequently, do to the low cool down time. While her Command: Attack doesn't cost much mana, spamming it as is necessary can easily eat mana. Also adding to this is the fact that, for a mage, she has a quite low maximum mana. In order to counteract this, I suggest getting an Archangel's Staff as soon as possible, really even before getting shoes.
Also, her passive doesn't really impress me. Her passive makes subsequent auto attacks on the same target do additional magic damage equal to a percent of her ability power. While this can be useful, it doesn't really do enough for me to really enjoy it, as far as I've seen. Granted, I've only played one game with her, but I don't see it really improving. I would prefer something to counteract her low mana, maybe something like Veigar's passive that increases mana regeneration per mana missing.
Finally, I'm not too impressed with how her ability power stacks with her abilities. From what I can tell, most of her abilities only use about 60% or so of her ability power. What this means is that, in order to really use her well, it is imperative to build her with a LOT of AP, meaning items like Soul Shroud or Frozen Heart which would really help her aren't able to be fit into her build as easily. All this really means, though, is that she's a glass cannon, which is nothing new.
All this being said, I am really impressed with Orianna, and look forward to getting much better with her.
In conclusion, I want to talk briefly about particular items that I think Orianna can use well.
1. Archangel's Staff: As I've mentioned before, Orianna is incredibly mana hungry. Archangel's staff increases her maximum mana every time an ability is used, which is quite often for her. In addition, it also grants some decent AP, as well as increasing your AP by 3% of your total mana, which is quite nice. Build this first.
2. Rabadon's Deathcap: This is one of the best AP items in the game, in my opinion. It gives a great amount of AP, plus increases your AP by 30%. Get shoes before this, but then build it as soon as possible.
3. Rylai's Crystal Scepter: This item gives a good amount of AP, plus some nice health, but it's real use comes with its passive. Any time you do magic damage, you reduce the target's movement speed by 35% (15% for multiple target or AOE) for 1.5 seconds. This means that your Command: Attack, Command: Protect, and your Command: Shockwave all now slow enemies' movement speed by 15%. I'm not sure if this speed reduction stacks with your Command: Dissonance, but if it does, ouch.
Well, that's it for my review. I hope you enjoy Orianna as much as I do. Peace.
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