Fear. How would one describe fear? Would it be some unpleasant emotion that is brought by the thought of someone or something being dangerous? Or the misunderstanding of a situation that may appear threatening or cause great pain (or something far worse)? And more importantly as far as our conversation for today, how does one showcase fear in a game like League of Legends? In a series with 148 playable champions, it can be tricky to have each one stand out; especially when you are apart of the initial roster over ten years ago like Fiddlesticks, “The Harbinger of Doom.” Back when the roster was just a meer 17 character roster, Fiddlesticks was your standard run of the mill scarecrow that did play up its fear motif within the game.
Source: League of Legends
A ghastly living scarecrow, Fiddlesticks is an abomination who stalks the darkness, wielding a scythe and preying upon the unwary. Aided by a savage murder of crows, Fiddlesticks relishes terrorizing his victims before claiming their lives amid a flurry of feathers and blood splattered beaks.
Now, this might look like a small summary of Fiddlesticks, but this is literally its entire biography. Again, he was one of the 7first champions in League of Legends, and with the game-changing so much over the last decade, it is understandable if Fiddlesticks has had little “official info.” That and its design is supposed to be… well… scary. Who would really see fear when you look at this scarecrow-
redesigning two champions. Out of the five champions, Fiddlesticks was the oldest and one that Riot did express the most interest in, saying his design “has not aged well.” Riot wanted to push the idea of having this terrifying scarecrow that can appear out of nowhere that can jump you out of nowhere and scare the hell out of the opponent. In order to do that, both the design and the gameplay of Fiddlesticks would need a tuneup and fans were in agreement.
Source: League of Legends
After the poll, we got a follow-up post talking about the results. As it turns out, Fiddlesticks and Volibear both took about 25% of the votes globally. Chances are that Shyvana will be next in line for a visual update (as she got the most votes in China), but for now it was all about the Scarecrow and the bear. While Volibear’s visual updates will likely drop in the coming months, Riot Games is just about ready to drop Fiddlesticks back into League of Legends and actually provide us with a character who is literally going to make players know what fear truly is in Summoner’s Rift.
How to Make a Scarecrow Look Scary
So while it would be fun to talk about Fiddlestick’s new redesign, it is probably much more fun to just show you the splash art.
Source: League of Legends
And keep in mind, this is only just the base skin. While the old design probably would still look like a kind scarecrow that would be in the cornfield, this Fiddlesticks isn’t trying to hide its true nature. Once it reveals itself, it will not hesitate to give chase as it will use all of its available limbs to crawl along the surface and give chase, to satisfy its unending hunger. If you saw this thing chasing you in a dark night, you’ll probably be scared stiff and probably wouldn’t have enough time to scream.
As one of the oldest Champions in the game, Fiddlesticks also has a wide range of skins to its name too. If we count the original skin, Fiddlesticks has ten in total. And yes, this rework will cover every single one of them. While some of the more recent skins it got like “Risen” and “Praetorian” won’t be too different, you will definitely see differences in everything else. Union Jack turns Fiddlesticks into a “Jack the Ripper”-like Scarecrow, Suprise Party is still just as goofy as it is terrifying to look at and Dark Candy would give the Krampus a run for its money for terrifying Christmas icon. Each skin has had lots of love put into them to reflect the new redesign.
To see a comparison of the splash arts, be sure to check out this video from Eldimarix.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veFG_Go0fzU
Fiddlestick’s Updated Abilities
So it’s one thing to give Fiddlesticks a new look to reflect how terrifying it has become, but it is another to have that reflect in-game. It can be hard to gauge how good Fiddlesticks is currently (as some would place it around the mid-to-low tier), but these new updates could allow it to become a far more dangerous Jungler.
Passive- A Harmless Scarecrow
If the teaser was anything to go off of, it is the idea that Fiddlesticks loves mind games.
From those looking into the passive ability, this passive ability is going to be a vast improvement over its current passive ability: Dread. Previously, if Fiddlesticks stood still, it gained a channelling ability, which would grant it bonus movement speed.
A Harmless Scarecrow changes things up by allowing Fiddlesticks to set up Scarecrow Effigies rather than trinkets that look just like Fiddlesticks. Should an enemy champion attack or approach the fake scarecrow, it will perform a random action like attack or cast Crowstorm; after which the effigy destroys itself. Fiddlesticks can hold up to Effigies at a time and the cooldown increases as Fiddlestick levels up. At Level 6, an effigy can reveal nearby wards for eight seconds.
Source: League of Legends
As you can imagine, this could lead to situations where Fiddlesticks players can set up opponents into misreading where Fiddlesticks actually is. It doesn’t help that Fiddlestick can also stand perfectly still like the effigies it sets up, but it can make others think that the Scarecrow is right there when it is really just a harmless scarecrow and the real one is about to murder you from behind.
Q- Terrify
Terrify operates in the same way that it did before. When cast on an enemy champion, it will instil fear on them and cause them to run away from Fiddlesticks. Now, there’s a new twist in the form of its new passive where if Fiddlesticks is out of combat and unseen, the next ability attack against an enemy champion will put them into a terrified state and cause them to flee.
This means that if you are laying out of sight when a champion is nearby, you can get the jump on them and have an edge at the start of a fight. even more so is how if you use the passive part of Terrify first, you can then use the active ability to not only damage them based on their current health, but if they are terrified, you can deal double damage.
Source: League of Legends
In a sense, Terrify will be able to allow you not only do some crowd control, but it can now be a way to be a powerful damage dealer.
W- Bountiful Harvest
Now that Fiddlesticks is far more frightening to look at, everyone nearby it will likely want to keep their distance. If you are familiar with Drain, this ability works the same where Fiddlesticks will go into a channel state and start to drain the enemy while healing itself. What makes Bountiful Harvest much more dangerous is how the drain now targets multiple units.
Source: League of Legends
Bountiful Harvest allows Fiddlesticks to drain all nearby enemies and damage them continuously for a few seconds while healing itself based on the damage dealt. As if that weren’t bad enough, there is a massive payoff for Fiddlesticks too should it complete the channelling. Not only will the cooldown get a partial refund (if Bountiful Harvest is fully channelled or if no enemies remain to be harvested) but the last tick will damage on the target’s missing health and will provide even more healing for Fiddlesticks.
E- Reap
The two other abilities have been an evolution of what Fiddlestick had previously, but now we get to something brand new. Fiddlesticks will no longer toss out a crow that can bounce off multiple targets and silence them (prevention of using abilities), but will now use that intimidating scythe to actually perform an attack.
Source: League of Legends
Fiddlesticks attacks in a crescent-shaped area and can damage and slow enemies in front of it. Meanwhile, if any enemies are caught in the centre of the crescent, they will be silenced. As an ability that was kind of point and click, the older ability will not be missed; especially by the enemy team. Now it feels like Fiddlesticks will have to be more in control about how it can damage and silence while enemies will have a better chance to dodge instead of a random crow coming in and ruining everyone’s fun.
R- Crowstorm
So with all the other abilities getting new and exciting reworks, Crowstorm should get something too, right? Well… outside of visual updates… no.
Source; League of Legends
Honestly, Fiddlestick’s ultimate ability was already pretty powerful considering how you can teleport into a fight after a few seconds of channelling and then deliver consecutive damage to all enemies around you, so what else would Fiddlesticks need?
Well, just remember that with the new passive with Q, this could be a powerful way to open up fights as landing Crowstorm in the middle of an enemy team can cause all five champions to run in various directions while you can start tearing them apart with your murder of crows.
What do you think about Fiddlesticks?
Will this rework make you want to play as Fiddlesticks? Will it make a big impact on the game of League of Legends? And what can we expect out of the other visual rework of Volibear?
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Seriously, if you go frame by frame, it is insane for how much detail was put into those two seconds of Fiddlesticks charging at the soldier. I honestly thought of using this picture as the cover picture, but I think that probably would have been too scary to have.
