Item Preview – The Storm

We peaked at a melee only AoE item yesterday and today Xypherous is treating us to a preview the ranged equivalent.
Continue reading for an item preview of a new, ranged only item called Runaan's Hurricane and a slew of additional red posts!

Here is the original announcement:

"Hey guys. If you haven’t already, check out my initial post about the itemization changes you’ll be seeing during the preseason. Today I thought I’d reveal a new item we can’t wait for you to get your hands on.

Ranged Carries traditionally have had the role of completely and utterly dominating a single target through high-capacity damage. However, many of our AD carries also have a substantial amount of Area of Effect damage that they currently are unable to specialize into. This leads them to an interesting paradox – I am a carry with strong Area of Effect damage, but I must itemize single target damage to stay relevant.

What if we could give you an alternative?

Quote:

Runaan’s Hurricane (Ranged Only) +60% Attack Speed UNIQUE Passive: Your basic attacks fire minor bolts at 2 nearby targets, each dealing (50% of Total Attack Damage) physical damage. These apply on-hit effects.

First of all, let’s examine what this item actually does:



Hurricane allows your ranged basic attacks to fire secondary bolts at nearby targets. These bolts cannot critically strike but can trigger your other on-hit effects, such as Varus’ Blighted Quiver in the above example. This allows characters like Varus or Miss Fortune, already strong Area of Effect damage dealers, to specialize into Area of Effect damage if they’d like to do so.

Let’s delve further into specifics:

1. Hurricane triggers each time you attack.
2. Hurricane is not an on-hit proc, nor does it trigger off of spells or abilities like Mystic Shot or Double Up that apply on-hit effects.
3. Hurricane deals 50% of your total attack damage.
4. Hurricane applies the full effect of on-hit effects with each bolt.

Taking this further, let’s explore how Hurricane interacts with various champion abilities:

Varus – Applies Blighted Quiver on everyone hit, which can then get triggered by his other spells.
Caitlyn – Gains one stack of Headshot for each target hit. Fires Headshot only at the primary target.
Graves – Reduces the cooldown of Quickdraw for 1 second for each target hit. (Edit: Whoops, got the wrong number here, thanks guys.)
Miss Fortune – Applies and stacks Impure Shots on every target hit. Activating Impure Shots will apply Grievous wounds to every target hit.

Champions that synergize poorly with Hurricane would be:

Ezreal – Doesn’t really have any effects that synergize with Hurricane.
Vayne – Silver bolts only applies on the primary target and requires consecutive hits to proc, thus Hurricane is mostly wasted.

We hope that Hurricane opens up some interesting build paths for AD carries looking to specialize in area of effect damage. While Hurricane certainly isn’t for every ranged character, we do hope that Hurricane allows carries to diverge from the standard path of single target damage in favor of a more AoE centric build they can use to gun down multiple opponents at the same time.

-Xypherous"

General Stuff

[ Will this work with Malady? ]: "Yes"

[ Does lifesteal work with Hurricane?]: "Yeah, but off the reduced % value."

[ Will this work with the new Manamune ( toggle, mana drain per shot for extra damage )]: "Hurricane + Manamune = Very very very expensive for your mana pool."

[ Will this proc Frozen Mallet and Phage? ]:

"It'll apply Frozen Mallet.

Phage will do a roll for each target hit and slow each target based on their individual rolls."

[ Is this item going to be insane with Blade of the Ruined King? ]: "Yes, BoRK + Hurricane has traditionally proven very very strong. As for Kog'maw - we'll have to see, as I think we might be able to put Hurricane in a spot where it's good on him - but in a lot of cases, a ranged carry wants to obliterate a single target as fast as possible."

[ How far away can Hurricane strike enemies? ]: "They have to be within (roughly) 300 units of your primary target.

Imagine Hurricane being a splash effect - that can only affect the two closest targets"

[ Will Hurricane's shots prioritize champions? ]: "Nope"

[ Why would we buy this over IE/BT/BC?]: "I see nothing wrong with IE/PD/BT trinity being core on a lot of carries. It's a simple, powerful and very effective play style that solidly states that you are focused on dealing as much single target damage. Just because it's popular, doesn't mean it's bad (outside of the fact that PD makes you super fast, negating the need for defensive options a lot of the times.)

Hurricane simply offers you the option of becoming more Multi-Target focused, rather than Single-target focused, if you decide that's worth doing for your character."

Champion Specific Inquiries

[ Will this work with Twisted Fate's pick a card, preforming a triple stun? ]: "Pick a Card and Stacked Decked are not on-hit effects. They are next-attack modifiers and do not work with Hurricane.

A good rule of thumb is: 'If I have more attack speed, do I get to apply this effect more often?' If the answer is no, it doesn't work with Hurricane.

The key distinction is whether it affects only one autoattack or not - these secondary bolts are not considered part of that "spell." They only enhance what would enhance all of your basic attacks."

[ How about with Ashe's Frost Shot? ]: "This works fine."

[ What about Sivir's Ricochet? ]: "Richochet is a next-attack modifier - and thus won't work with Hurricane.

Again, the attack speed test holds true - 'If I get more attack speed, will I get more procs?' If the answer is no, then Hurricane won't work with it."

[ Draven's Spinning Axes? ]: "Nope. Spinning Axe is a next-hit modifier."

[ What about Kayle's Righteous Fury? ]: "Now that I think about it - this doesn't, mostly because Kayle is this instant autoattack thing that gets really desync'ed with actual Hurricane shots."

[ Sona's Power Chord? ]: "Nope. Sona's Power Chord affects your next attack - but isn't an enchantment over all attacks."

[ Since it specfically doesn't work with Vayne, how will players now of this special case exclusion ]: "Vayne is a very special case - as if Hurricane worked with Silver Bolts - Vayne would never get a Silver Bolts proc ever gain.

If it becomes a major problem we'll just have to be more careful on tooltips and labelling with Hurricane. It's a problem that's been solved before. Hurricane is essentially an 'On Attack, fires 3 bolts that apply all your On Striking' modifiers, in Diablo 2 parlance, so I know it's solveable."

[ Will Cait and Kennen charge their stacks faster? ]: "Caitlyn and Kennen will both charge their passives up faster, but when their passives are charged, they get an auto-attack enhancer for one attack.

So essentially, headshot and Kennen' special marking shuriken will charge much more quickly - but they'll still only fire one special shot to their primary target."


[ What about Lulu's passive? ]: "Lulu's passive doesn't interact with this item at all, but it follows the same rules. "

[How about champion X?? ]: "Twitch's passive applies to every autoattack he makes and thus Hurricane's passive will apply Twitch's Poison.

Similarly with Teemo.

Actually, let me just run down the list of ranged champions, that might be faster:

Ashe: Frost arrow works, as it applies to every autoattack.

Caitlyn: Headshot charges faster because it applies to every autoattack but she still only fires one empowered headshot per attack when she has it ready.

Corki: Passive works, as it applies to every autoattack.

Draven: Q and Passive both don't work, as they don't apply to every autoattack. The passive requires the attack to critically strike which Hurricane bolts can't.

Ezreal: Has no on-hit effects.

Graves: E is an on-hit effect and thus E's cooldown will shorten each time he hits something with a Hurricane bolt.

Jayce: Jayce's passives will only apply to his primary target, as it is a attack modifier that only applies once.

Kayle: Doesn't work - but that's mostly due to the fact that her autoattack is an instant attack and thus the AoE field doesn't really make a whole lot of sense coming from the secondary bolts. I'll probably have to work on this one.

Kennen: 'W' charges faster as that applies to every autoattack - but the actual empowered shuriken only affects one additional target as that applies only once.

Kog'Maw: 'W' applies to each target hit, currently.

Lulu: Zero interactions

Miss Fortune: 'W' will stack up and apply grievous wounds to everyone hit by Hurricane Shots, as they apply to all her autoattack in a short duration.

Orianna: Orianna's passive applies to everyone hit - although she will never be able to make 'consecutive' attacks against the same target due to hitting multiple people at a time.

Sivir: Sivir's 'W' does not work with Hurricane, as it is an attack enhancer that only triggers once.

Sona; Power chord does not work with Hurricane, as it is an attack enhancer that only triggers once.

Teemo: Toxic shot will work on Hurricane bolts, as it toxic shot applies to every autoattack.

Tristanna: Explosive shot will work on Hurricane bolts, as it is a passive that applies to every autoattack.

Twitch: Twitch's posion will work on Hurricane bolts, as it is a passive applies to every autoattack.

Twisted Fate: Neither Pick a Card or Stacked Deck will work with Hurricane, as they are passives that apply to one autoattack. Stacked Deck will however, charge much more quickly as the charging happens every autoattack.

Urgot: Urgot's passive will work on Hurricane bolts, as it is a passive that applies to every autoattack.

Varus: Blighted Quiver will work on Hurricne bolts, as it is a passive that applies to every autoattack.

Vayne: Vayne's Silver Bolts are specially coded to not work with Hurricane, as if silver bolts did work with Hurricane, she would never get a Silver Bolts proc ever again. (Because Silver Bolts has a consecutive target restriction.)

Ziggs: ZIgg's Passive will not work on Hurricane bolts, as it is an attack enhancer that only affects one autoattack."

Miss out on some of Xypherous' earlier posts about the S3 updates to itemization? Check 'em out:

• 11/7 - Overview and Brutilzer + Black Cleaver.
• 11/8 - Eleisa's Miracle 
• 11/8 - Tons of Mana, Just On Tear - Updates to ToG, AaS, and a new item. 
• 11/9 - Dust Sweeping - Removed items, Sightstone, and more. 
• 11/13 - It's Tuesday  - Changes to Tiamat and more.