Riot announced a rework of Udyr in patch 12.16

Udyr the Spirit Walker- one of the oldest champions in the League of Legends is finally getting his long-awaited rework! The decision to remake the champion was first announced by Riot Games over two years ago, and since then, the League of Legends community has been looking forward to any updates in the work on the rework.

When to expect Udyr

Judging by the words of one of the Riot team patches 12.15 and 12.16

Just a couple of days ago, on July 21, a Riot Games employee known as Reav3 became active on the Reddit thematic thread. He answered many questions from the players and, among other things, mentioned more than once about Udyr and his rework.

Thus, we can make an obvious conclusion: we will definitely not see the new Spirit Wanderer in the next 12.14 patches, the preview of which we have already seen and the next 12.15, which should not become global. But according to Reav3, it will happen next month, that is, around August 9th with patch 12.16! Moreover, many insiders are sure that we will still be able to watch Udyr at 12.15, but on a test PBE server.

What is known about the rework at the moment

Possible concepts and several abilities

Exactly like the mechanics of the champion, the main part of the lore and uniqueness of Udyr was not touched in any way. On the contrary, its history and thoughtfulness of the image is likely to deepen even more.

Let's be honest, earlier Udyr might have seemed to many not as a great shaman and spirit wanderer who roams the forests of the Freljord and has a connection with the demigods, but rather as a kind of bum and wanderer who uses a bestial fist fighting style.

But now everything must change! Everyone agreed that it is worth clinging more strongly to the topic of shamanism, spirituality and the bestial demigods of the Freljord, whose representatives are Anivia, Volibear. And the ridiculous “Tiger Stance” or “Turtle Stance” will now become “Ram Stance” and “Mammoth Stance”, which is much more suitable for the fauna of the eternally cold part of Runeterra.

The essence of his passive skill will be that each of the stances can increase upon awakening, which will even be visually different. Excellent and simple mechanics, following the example of the Karma Mantra. Exactly how Udyr will achieve the awakened stance form is still unknown, but most likely it will either have a cooldown like Vex, or you will have to use several skills in a cycle to get to the enhanced one.

By activating this skill, Udyr will no longer stun the enemy like before. Now it will become something like his main area of effect damage, a jungle clearing tool. Udyr will fill his fists with lightning that will bounce from enemy to enemy, which is a clear reference to Volibear and his passive. But, if the enemy is alone and there is nowhere to bounce, the lightning will deal increased damage.

A skill that will turn the Udyr's fists into ice spikes, similar to Anivia's[E]. And yes, you heard right! This time, the phoenix will be icy, which will obviously show a connection with the second demigod known to us - Anivia. Apparently, the skill will slow down the hit target and possibly deal damage in an area, but in a very narrow cone.

2 years robots, why so long?!

Problems and difficulties in refining Udyr

Seven months ago, Riot Games shared the progress of Udyr on their blog, where they talked about the difficulties they had to face while working on the transformation of this jungler.

But really, it’s quite difficult to change and “refresh” the champion, whose main feature is different types of auto attacks, and all four abilities. And it would seem that you can just make it completely new without changing the concept. But champion design studio Riot Games was tasked with updating it so as not to completely kill these mechanics for which many people liked it.

Another titanic, according to the developers, complexity was the absolute image, which is owned by the wanderer of spirits from the cold forests of the Freljord. After all, the image itself already looked like a visual rework of the champion, but now we need to make sure that the classic model looks no worse, and even so that this very absolute image is rightfully called “absolute”.