League of Legends’ 162nd champion, K’Sante, has just had his abilities revealed, and his ultimate allows him to switch up his class in an instant to go from a protective warden in the top lane to a fearsome skirmisher.
K’Sante – who is also League of Legends’ first Black LGBTQ champion – possesses a wild ultimate called All Out. When activated, he not only performs a massive knockback attack (which deals big physical damage and can even send enemies hurtling over walls) but his entire purpose switches up from a defensive champion to an offensive one.
When in his All Out form, K’Sante changes from a warden to a skirmisher, as he “loses a percentage of max health, bonus armor, and bonus magic resistance” but “gains attack damage, omnivamp, and transforms his abilities” to become more lethal.
In a developer Q+A, game designer Jacob Crouch says that K’Sante’s All Out – and the high-stakes 1v1 duels that can play out as a result of using the ability – was somewhat inspired by some anime icons.
“We went through earlier versions where you just press the button and you swapped from warden to skirmisher and generally it lacked some sort of satisfaction level to it,” Crouch says. “Eventually, [we took] inspiration from anime, like Dragon Ball Z and Naruto with Rock Lee. Dragon Ball Z is probably the best example of someone goes Super Saiyan, they hit someone through a mountain, they appear on the other side, they smack them down on the ground, and then their epic duel starts from there – [that] was definitely something that we found really cool.”
In regards to some of K’Sante’s other abilities, Crouch says the new champion plays a lot like a brawler you’d see in combo-heavy fighting games.
“He does get to do certain combos of abilities that feel more like like a hit confirm from Smash Bros., where once you land this ability, now that’s enabled this part of your kit to do this other ability, which enables this part of your kit to do this ability, and it chains together very nicely,” he explains.
A good example of this is K’Sante’s Q, Ntofo Strikes, which at first appears to be a relative simple close-range melee attack to deal damage. However, landing two successive hits onto targets turns the third Ntofo Strike into a shockwave that will blast enemies towards you.
For a full breakdown of K’Sante’s kit, check out our League of Legends K’Sante release date guide that explains everything shown off in the gameplay trailer above and when you can expect to play him.