Sword of defiance:



E: defiant stance: channel in place for up to 3 seconds. During the channel, gain 50% damage reduction. While channeling, gain 1 defiance stack each time you take damage. At the end of the channel, dash toward the location of your cursor, dealing damage to enemies in a line, and expending all defiance stacks. The amount of damage dealt scales with the number of defiance stacks spent. This channel cannot be interrupted. Mobs struck by the dash will have their actions interrupted and agro to you. If canceled early, you will dash toward your cursor, lose all defiance stacks and deal damage immediately.



Explanation: Swords already have a strong presence in pvp, with broadswords in 2v2s, claymore and carving in 5v5, and galatine in zvz. The design of this sword is to give swords more versatility in PVE as well as solo play. We all know that artifact weapons are a pain in the ass to grind. The mob agro on this new E skill will allow the sword player to fill more than one role in PvE. If he wants to join a party as DPS, can go with a carving sword. But with this new skill, he can also join now as a tank, making it easier to look for parties for fame farming.



I envision this skill to be a high impact skill with a long cooldown. In PvP, this is a weapon design for outnumbered fights. One can use this ability both to escape and to fight back. Since the damage you deal with it scales from the number of hits you recieve, it will be a strong choice against unsuspecting gankers.



Usage and Counterplay: don't hit the person channeling this skill with small bits of damage. 3 seconds is a lot of time to reposition and/or surround him, cutting off his escape at the end of the channel. Since the damage scales from the number of defiance stacks on you, a well timed purge can also ruin the damage from this skill if iron will is not being used with it. Since damage from this skill scales with the number of his you recieve, not the amount of damage you receive, the smartest time to use it is while there’s a bunch of DOTs on you. Iron will can be used to prevent purges, and ensure the damage at the end of the channel. Hellion jacket might be a good way to ensure you survive the channel, and soldiers armor can help you build up for an insane burst at the end.



Inspiration: the Avalonians are warriors who fought alongside King Arthur. The visual inspiration for this design came from Saber, from Fate/Stay Night.



1 hand axe rework:

The original idea for the current version of the 1hand axe is that of a life-steal tank. Life steal tanks are a very difficult idea to balance. If you push their numbers too high, they will be unstoppable, and if you make their numbers too low, they will be useless. As it is right now, the 1hand axe is useless. The amount of damage they do and the amount of healing they give are simply too weak. Here’s my idea for fixing this.



New E: Bloody Berserker.

Activate to receive lifestealing buff. The buff provides lifesteal from all damage sources and scales in intensity with missing health.



Explanation: The current 1hand axe E puts all of its damage and healing in one unavoidable hit, against which there is very little counter play. If you simply buff the numbers on this skill, it will become too strong. If you leave the numbers as they are, it is too weak. My version of the 1hand axe E, the bloody berserker, is a purgeable buff that lasts for only 3 seconds. There are obvious ways to counter play this, as a result it is possible to push its numbers very high without making it too broken.



Usage and Counter play: Since the healing scales with intensity, the user will also have to take risks while using this skill. Activating it too early means you will get very little healing from it, while activating it too late risks getting executed by things like bloodletters. It is a buff, therefore purgeable. And it has a very short duration, so one could stun the user and walk away from him until the buff expires. On the other hand, it is an extremely powerful buff. Life steal from all sources means all the damage from your Q, W, and bleeds will heal you. Stalker jacket, hellion jacket, and even specter jacket damage will trigger the effect as well.



Inspiration:

The axe is a stereotypical bruiser weapon. Bruisers in most games are expected to be mechanically simple, yet powerful. This design is therefore very simple:turn the buff on and go in. But be careful not to get stunned or kited.





Axe of valor:

Current axe designs are all very all-in types of weapons. My design for the avalonian axe is one that gives a little variety to this weapon tree by adding a little mechanical flashiness.



Hook/Reaping swing:

This is a two part skill. First, use Hook to reach out with your axe to hook all enemies in a cone shaped aoe in front of you, bringing them to your location. Then, you can re-activate the skill within 2 seconds to use Reaping swing, allows your character to dash backwards a short distance while swinging the axe to strike in a cone shaped aoe slowing and dealing damage to enemies based on the number of Q stacks on the target.



Usage and counter: hook can be used in 2 ways. To set up for your teammate and initiate a fight, or to prevent foes from escaping. Since the damage and slow on reaping swing scales with the number of Q stacks on the enemies, opening up with hook means you won’t do much damage with rending swing. So if you initiate with Hook then your teammates better follow up on it. Since Hook brings enemies to your current location, mage sandals with delayed teleport could have a fun interaction with hook to bring enemies into your teammates over a ridiculous distance. If you use hook and rending swing over a prolonged fight, with full Q stacks on the enemies, rending swing can do a lot of damage, so cleansing the Q stacks after getting pulled but before rending swing hits would be the way to counter it.



Inspiration: The actual skill in inspired by darius, from league of legends. Visually, avalonians are like holy warriors. The typical visage of a bloodied axe wielding berserker does not suit them. Their usage of the axe should be flashy and skillful, yet deadly, like a gladiator. I also would like to see the avalonian axe as a one handed weapon, as currently there is no 1 handed artifact axe