Upcoming news for bot lane: Milio, The Gentle Flame he is the one hundred and sixty-third champion of League of Legends, and brings with him the warm warmth of a hearth around which to gather and tell stories. Of teamfights won, possibly.
Developer / Publisher: Riot Games Prezzo: Free to Play Location: complete Multiplayer: Online GO: 12 Available On: PC Launch Date (Milio): March 22
It has now been four months since the arrival of K’Sante on Summoner’s Rift. Nazumah’s warrior has been wreaking a bit of a havoc in top lane, with his hopping around and his low cooldown abilities. But now the time has come to go look at the opposite side of the map: Milio, La Fiamma Gentile is in fact a support champion designed to shine when in the company of other champions. In a recent meeting, the League of Legends development team decided to talk to us in more detail.
MILIO AND ITS PARTICULARITIES
Riot Games has set itself two main objectives with Milio: the first was respond to community requests for an enchanter (ie: a champion who helps the team with shields, heals, buffs of various types rather than with direct damage) with a low-medium complexity, “easy to learn but difficult to master”, as the designer defined it Myles Salholm; a detachment, therefore, from supports such as Renata or Rell, which require a considerable degree of familiarity with the situation we are facing and a good ability to evaluate the right moment to act. The second was to expand the park of heroes Ixtal, homeland not only of Milio but also of Qiyana; curiously, the developers have defined Ixtal as the “least popular” region among League of Legends fans, and I have no doubt that the elusive, lethal and arrogant Empress of the Elements has contributed to the lack of popularity of her homeland.
With Milio, however, Riot (and especially the duo Elyse Lemoine e Nancy Kim, who dealt respectively with the narrative and the artistic aspect) wants to offer a further look at this city and its inhabitants, in this case taking a young man who seems to have come out of a Ghibli film and who has often been defined by its creators like “dorky”, a term that translates into… do you know Lillia’s personality? Here, something like that. Anyway, let’s look at her skills, via:
Passive (Blazing!): Whenever an ally is touched by one of Milio’s abilities, the next attack or ability damage dealt by the ally causes additional magic damage. The developers have specified that this ability does not apply more than once at the same time, so champions with high attack speed will not benefit greatly from it.
Q (Ultra Mega Fire Kick): Milio kicks a sprite, which knocks back the first enemy hit, then falls to the ground, causing splash damage and a slow effect. This skill is used by our team to create space, drive away dangerous enemies or – for those who feel like risking a little more – push them towards our team. He has a nice long recharge time, so be careful to use it at random or you could find yourself without it when you need it most.
W (Refreshing Fire): Milio creates a hearth that heals nearby allies over time, and increases their attack distance by a percentage. The hearth follows and moves with the closest ally at the time of the cast.
E (Warm Hugs): Milio grants a shield and increases the movement speed of target allied champion. This ability has two charges.
R (Breath of Life): Milio heals nearby allies, removes all impeding effects they are unaffected by (with the exception of knocking up), and increases their toughness for a few seconds.
In short, as you can easily guess, it is a kit that makes it particularly suitable for a role behind the front line, a save other champions from danger and help them make the big playsrather than doing them himself. As for bot lane, Myles Salholm also pointed to his excellent synergy with champions who can already count on a good range of their attacks, such as Kog’Maw, Aphelios e Caitlyn; precisely the couple that sees the latter in the company of Milio has been defined as “the new Lucian and Nami”, a phrase that we do not doubt will have immediately caused exclamations of despair among those who dedicated themselves to bot lane during the last season of ranked matches. Riot, in any case, has not failed to give us some indications on the most suitable way to face Milio, suggesting his physiological weakness to champions equipped with harpoons (therefore Blitzcrank, Pyke e Thresh); its fragility also makes it very vulnerable to ganks from the jungle. As a die-hard ARAM player, I’m also curious to see how it performs on Howling Abyss, but I realize I’m in the minority.
These concept art show some steps of the evolution of Milio’s abilities during the development.
Let’s close with a few dates: starting tomorrow (that is March 7th, if the calendar doesn’t deceive me) Milio will be available on the PBE, that is the League of Legends test environment. To see it arrive in full order, we will have to wait instead on the evening of March 22ndwhen its Champion Showcase will also be published.
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