Spilling the Beans on the "Anchor man"

Posted on at 5:15 AM by Moobeat
Xypherous has done it again! During a massive 60+ posting spree, he gave us a giant Q&A session about the upcoming League of Legends champion jokingly refereed to as "Anchor Man". This thread comes at us well before an "official reveal" or teaser and contains nearly and bit of information you could want.

For starters, this new champion is going to be a CC heavy and AP based tank, similar to Amumu or Leona, and is a denizen of the sea who wields a giant anchor. His main bread and butter ability is going to be a hookshot - "A hookshot is an item that goes out in a straight line and pulls things to you. Or if you hit terrain, you pull yourself to it.". In a later post Xypherous expands on the hook shot a bit by saying "His Q pulls both of you together if it hits a unit - and pulls him all the way if you hit a tower.  However, you can set the ability up so you will always move forward. Aim at a champion, but make sure there is terrain behind him. Even if he jukes you will move toward him."

Perhaps the most revealing posts was a stab at the kit itself synthesized from all the previous posts:
 "Passive - 
Q - Hookshot, pulls Anchorman towards terrain, or if hits champion (any enemy?) pulls anchorman and that enemy together, but presumably moves Anchorman than enemy less because he's big and heavy
W - Shield that scales with hp
E - Homing tidal burst that travels up to a maximum amount of time towards a target/until it hits the target. blows up things it hits along the way, blows up and slows on impact of actual target.
R - Slow version of Tidehunter's ult, keeping enemies close to you unless they choose to run and get cc'd by the spikes."
Xypherous simply responded with "You have E and R reversed." and partly confirmed the kit. Check out the rest of the posts below for some more delicious details about "Anchorman":
[Resource System?]
Yes, he uses Mana.
[on his ability ratios - AD or AP?]
Hm. All his damaging moves have AP ratios. One of his moves also has a health ratio.
[did you design this champion?]
 Yes
[how difficult is he to play?]
Hm. He should be pretty easy to pick up - his abilities are all very straight forward.He's a little difficult to optimize though - His self-CC chain needs to be staggered. There's some timing considerations on when it is best to use W and you want to place your R on the right line for maximal effect.
[Range on the hookshot?]
it's like Mummy Q, which is around 1050
[So his hook shot can pull people to him but also moves him?]
His Q is halfway between Amumu and Blitzcrank, but based on the range it will feel more like one or the other. Since it has a minimum drag distance for the opponent, up close, you can reset an enemy's position if they escape. Far away though, you'll move much farther to them. 
[What function is his passive going to serve?]
His passive gives him a heavy incentive to switch targets in a fight
[So, as Sejuani uses ice, will he use water?]
He is indeed nautically inspired - He has two things with major water effects - but that's more of a side effect rather than water manipulation
[Can he Jungle?]
 I like him as a jungler, because I like jungling more at the moment. I think you waste some gank potential if you're top
[Anything about the back story?]
He was a sailor at one point - But I'm not sure he's a pirate per se.

- Xypherous, Associate Technical Designer, via the official forums.








Edit: I realize not everyone might know what Tidehunter, a champion from DotA, does and would be sort of in the dark about the skill kit. A copypasta of the ability is "Slams the ground, causing waves of spikes to ring the hero in all directions. Deals damage and stuns." As weird as this video is, the middle of it has the cleanest image of his ultimate I could find off hand.

Edit 2: I'm very aware his name isn't really Anchor man, I chose to call him that because it is obviously not his real name. "Nautilus" is the working name used in the thread, but there wasn't a definite on that sticking as his permanent name so I didn't want to confuse anyone by using it.

8 comments

  1. Didn't they say they were scrapping this idea, months ago?

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  2. They scrapped different one. Or two, after reading through Xyph posts.

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  3. Xypherous definitely told that Nautilus is this champ's working name.
    His R seems to be similar to Graves ultimate, but additionally stuns primary target and knocks secondary targets back.

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  4. Xyph said support should be out 'soonishly'.

    There is also second champion of his in pipe, much more challenging apparently. I guess I will save my IP for now.

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  5. Riot should seriously just stop releasing champions this often if they are all going to be shit. Every other one is "ok", why dont they make one good champion a month?

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  6. I agree!

    I think, most of new champions are "Dirty" i mean, not true hero, just mixture of some another one, just see some good sheet where compare there stats, they have same dmg, same hp, same ratio. But they are not true AP,true dmg etc. What is Scarner ? shyvanna ? sejuani (maybe she is tank.) ? fizz ? , Riven ? Talon? Yorick ? wukong ?

    You buy them, play, NERF, buy new one.
    money money money

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  7. Sounds like an interesting tank. Alas he might be too strong from the release. Let's hope that he will be mostly balanced upon release.

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