The wilds are a dangerous place, only tread by the most experienced, or foolhardy explorers. A group called the Wilders live within these lands, forging bonds with their companions to help their survival and hunting.

Our first peek into these wardens and wilder’s come in the form of Waoku-Falcon, the Envoy.

As a Wilder, Waoku-Falcon grew up in the wilds and has subsequently grown into a master of his chosen weapon: Bow. His pact is with a falcon, named Gano, whose keen eye watches from above to alert Waoku of any nearby threats.

He fights back the curse of the wilds, which twists creatures who wander into the deep wilds mad, melting their surroundings into them.

Only the Wardens fight to fight back anything that emerges from deep within the wilds.

Meet the Envoy, Waoku-Falcon:

Our idea for Waoku is to be played in the jungle, in either the Poacher or Saboteur role, although we expect that he’ll excel particularly as a Saboteur due to the nature of his kit. Unseen hunter encourages him to remain out of sight of the enemy team for extended periods of time during the early game. During team fights, he should be seeking to flank his enemies from creative locations, particularly by setting up from the brush. Once he has used his full combo to kill a priority target, Woaku-Falcon can continue contributing to the fight through a combination of Spectral Arrows for damage and Broadwings to control the location of the remaining enemies.

Waoku is intended to be a very high skill cap character that rewards players strongly for understanding his kit and play-style. He won’t burst his enemies down as hard as a melee assassin might and much of his damage is gated behind landing his Spectral Arrow on his focus target. Though he should still be able to wipe an enemy team with relative ease if he picks his timing correctly.

Along with this high skill cap, Waoku also has some assassin-like mobility, whilst using his spirit dash correctly. Most of his strength comes from the pre-fight poke, due to the very long range of a fully charged Spectral Arrow, and the ability to quickly disengage from an enemy front liner with a fast Q+E combo, crippling an engaging enemy.

PASSIVE: UNSEEN HUNTER

When Waoku-Falcon is unseen by enemy Forgers for at least a moderate amount of time, his next ability to damage an enemy Forger deals bonus magical damage. This is consumed if he is visible to the enemy team for a short duration.

This passive is designed to really help Waoku-Falcon dart in and out of fights in the late game. In the early game, it has a relatively long cooldown so that he can’t act as an extremely oppressive Harrier, but by the late game, the cooldown will be short enough that he’ll be able to get a rotation off on an enemy with his passive, then run off to hide and have the passive back up by the time his full (non-ultimate) rotation is back. This will allow him to play in a traditional assassin manner, trying to jump on a high priority target to kill them before escaping to get another rotation off on another high priority target, or just poke the enemy frontline for the rest of the fight.

Q: SPECTRAL ARROW

Waoku-Falcon nocks a spectral arrow and draws for up to a couple of seconds, increasing the range and damage of the shot depending on how long he charges it. On release, he fires the arrow in the targeted direction, dealing a minimum of a low amount of physical damage to the first enemy hit, up to a maximum of a moderate amount of physical damage based on how long he charged the ability for. The Spectral Arrow remains in the target for a moderately short amount of time. Waoku-Falcon’s basic abilities consume the Spectral Arrow, dealing a low amount of bonus magic damage.

If Spectral Arrow hits an enemy already marked with Spectral Arrow, it is consumed, dealing an increased percentage of the mark’s normal damage and the debuff is re-applied.

When performing his full combo on someone, the total amount of damage that this ability can deal ends up being very high for a basic ability, but it’s gated behind a telegraphed ability (which is where the playstyle encouraged by his passive comes into play). Waoku-Falcon’s damage is somewhat hybridized, which allows him to remain effective at dealing with characters even late into the game. The only sources of magic damage on his kit are Unseen Hunter and Spectral Arrow so his total magic damage will be notably lower than that of a dedicated magic damage dealer. But it will be enough to make it tricky to build against him.

Additionally, as this ability reaches max level, and as Waoku-Falcon itemizes for Haste, his full potential as a ranged assassin comes into play. He can help siege effectively due to the low cooldown of this ability, as its primary form of gating is the charge time to get the maximum amount of damage. This means that he has an option to help poke the enemy team, whittling them down until he can afford to dive in for a full combo to finish someone off.

W: SPIRIT DASH

Waoku-Falcon dashes a short distance in target direction, dealing moderate physical damage and briefly slowing any enemies he passes through. If Waoku-Falcon was unseen by enemy Forgers when he cast this ability, he does not become targetable until he reaches the end of the dash.

If Waoku-Falcon hits a forger that has been marked with Spectral Arrow, he can re-cast this ability to dash again in a smaller radius from his current position, dealing a lesser percentage of the initial cast’s damage to all enemies that he passes through.

This ability grants Waoku-Falcon a lot of repositioning potential at the beginning of a team fight, particularly due to his ability to use it to bypass the enemy frontline completely. We expect Waoku-Falcon players to start a fight from out of enemy vision, poke the enemy front line with a quick cast of Spectral Arrow, then use Spirit Dash to pass through the frontline that they are tagged, continuing on towards the backline. This ability does come with a high learning curve, as it means that Waoku-Falcon players need to be good at tracking enemy ward placements, and need to know when the bush that they’re “hiding” it is completely visible to their enemies.

E: BROADWING

Waoku-Falcon sends his falcon to harry a target enemy, dealing moderately high physical damage to the enemy and slowing them for a short amount of time.

If Broadwing targets an enemy marked with Spectral Arrow, Waoku-Falcon cripples the target for the same duration as well.

There are a few notable things at play in Broadwing. Firstly, due to Woaku-Falcon’s damage being lower, overall, than a melee assassin’s damage, we wanted to grant him a bit more utility, and consistency, than you would see on a melee assassin. This meant that we could afford a bit of flexibility on his E, so we decided to give him a conditional soft ‘root’, created via an ability both slowing and crippling a unit at the same time. This is a step up from just a slow (as it also prevents the enemy from using any of their mobility skills or spells), but it is also weaker than a true root, as the enemy will still be able to move to some degree.

R: BREATH OF THE WILDS

Waoku-Falcon fires an arrow in target direction that stops upon hitting an enemy Forger, dealing low physical damage. Then he fires 5 arrows in a cone that converge toward the hit enemy. Each arrow stops upon hitting an enemy Forger, dealing an additional very low amount of physical damage. If the first arrow does not hit an enemy Forger, the secondary arrows do not converge.

Finally, we have Waoku-Falcon’s ultimate. While each individual arrow in this ability doesn’t deal a huge amount of damage, the total potential damage to this ability is one of the highest among ultimates in our initial character set. If a Waoku-Falcon can catch an enemy team unawares, he can use this combined with his Q to make quick work of a back liner with ease. However, it will take careful consideration and discipline from the person playing Woaku-Falcon to know when to pull the trigger, as missing his ultimate, or hitting the wrong target, can be just as fight changing as hitting it.

CONCLUSION

Waoku-Falcon has been in incubation for a long time, being one of the first forger kits to have been redone earlier this year, he’s come a long way from the initial idea.

Jas has done an amazing job on the art, and I hope that everyone is really hyped to see how his kit plays out in the Forges.

Looking forward to giving you all more updates!

Duncan “Dink_Dunk” Duguid