League of Legends principal champ designer August Browning broke down what an early iteration of Jinx’s kit looked like—and it definitely had “Ranged Udyr” vibes.
The Riot dev described Jinx’s original kit on Twitter today. And similar to how Udyr shifts stances with each ability, the AD carry would swap weapons that each offered a different auto attack mechanic.
Her Q provided rockets that were slow, blockable, and dealt “huge [AoE] damage,” likely similar to her current Fishbones basic attacks. Jinx’s W was a Shock Rifle that would slow enemies on every third attack and E was a minigun that would increase in attack speed while standing still. As for her ultimate, it would be a different spell depending on which weapon you had equipped.
Browning continued to explain that her rockets and minigun were eventually consolidated onto her Q so the devs could “give her more fun spells to cast.” Shock Rifle turned into Zap! and she got some grenades to throw down with E.
Even though Jinx didn’t ship with this kind of kit, another AD carry eventually did. Aphelios, who was designed by Stash “Stashu” Chelluck and Bradford “CertainlyT” Wenban, wields several weapons that offer unique gameplay and cause slight changes to his ultimate depending on which one is on his main hand. While he was once extremely overpowered and a balancing nightmare, Aphelios currently sports an underwhelming 46-percent win rate in Platinum ranks and above, according to Champion.gg.
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