I complained to Riot about Ambessa’s streaks and they responded

On By Littum

I started playing League of Legends right after it came out of beta and haven’t stopped, so I like to think I’m a good representative of the community.

I got the chance to play Ambessa before she hit the PBE servers in a media preview at Riot HQ, and on behalf of everyone, I preemptively gave my feedback to the game developers in person. You are welcome.

Let me put this into context: League of Legends was perfectly fine before Yasuo came out. Sure, Rengar and Kha’Xiz were a pain, but Yasuo is built differently.

Key LoL splash art featuring Vi, Senna, Yasuo, Volibear and Lulu
Credit: Riot Games

He has a lot of streaks, puts up a wall that blocks game-changing projectiles, and can even knock us over and kill us in the backline (I’m a support head, so this is my safe space). It was a major turning point for the League of Legends community.

He paved the way for many more mobile champions to enter the roster. Conveniently, he also has a brother.

League of Legends champions with dashes – why do they even exist?

These “hyphenated champions”, as the LoL community likes to call them, are very much on our minds when we play the game. In the last few years we’ve had a few that have made highlights – Gwen, Viego, Samira, Yone, Qiyana and Pyke to name a few. Ignoring Viego’s original release, no one was terribly meta-breaking until 2022.

What happened in 2022? K’Sante co-starred with Lil Nas and the Worlds 2022 Finals Opening Ceremony.

LoL tank champion K'Sante base splashart
Credit: Riot Games

Glittering gold, glittering sparkles and Star Walkin’ are forever etched into our minds, put together to welcome a fabulously dressed LGBTQ+ member to the LoL roster. Never before has a master’s release been such a spectacle.

Riot Games went All Out on K’Sante, not only in his big entrance, but also his base stats because he scales on pretty much everything.

“This is K’Sante, a champion with 4,700 HP, 329 Armor, and 201 MR, has Unstoppable, a shield, and walks over walls. Has Airborne, and the cooldown is also only one second. It costs 15 Mana. The W CD even gets refreshed when he transforms.Then, when he stacks Armor and MR, he also gets Ability Haste for his Q, and then he has an AD- relationship, so his W…AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA,” Heo “ShowMaker” Su commented on the streamwhich has since become a permanent LoL meme.

Heartsteel K'Sante official PC wallpaper
Credit: Riot Games

Because of this, K’Sante has never fully left the meta since. In season 13, he was picked off by major league top field professionals 401 times and struck out 175 times, amounting to a 60.4% presence according to gol.gg. LPL and LCS were the best regions to play him.

In season 14, his popularity grew even more. Shocker. He was picked 856 times and ruled out 378 times (64.7% presence), and his win rate improved from 48.6% to 50.9%. He was especially popular during MSI and had an 81% attendance.

One professional player is associated with him more than others – Kim “Kiin” Gi-in currently has an 80.6% win rate on the champion. Kiin’Sante, we call him.

Fast forward two years to 2024, while the League community is still dealing with the aftermath of K’Sante, not only do we have a new champion with dashes, we have a champion who is allowed to jump after every ability roll without limitations of mana.

Who’s going to bet she’ll be another top laner that never leaves?

I raised our concerns about Ambessa’s streaks with Riot – this was their response

League of Legends champion Ambessa Medara splashart official wallpaper
Credit: Riot Games

I flew 15 hours to Los Angeles to visit Riot HQ for the Arcane Summit only to discover that Ambessa has way too many streaks. Her design, attitude and character are super badass and cool, but her mobility? Maybe not like that.

Skills aside, her movement is rooted in her passive, Drakehound’s Step:

Entering an attack or movement command while casting an ability will cause Ambessa to dash a
short distance when the ability is cast. Casting an ability grants her next attack bonus area, damage and attack speed and refunds energy.

In other words, she is constantly in motion. Unlike every other champion in the game, Ambessa is all about dash, attack, dash, attack, dash, attack, rinse and repeat.

“We’re aware of what we’re doing,” game designer Max “Riot Yelough” Perlman told ONE Esports. “We realize we gave her a very powerful tool that we know will attract a lot of attention.”

Mel's mother, Ambessa Medarda, from Noxus first appears in Arcane Act 3, Episode 8
Credit: Riot Games, screenshot by Amanda Tan/ONE Esports

He believes the community will feel positive about it because she really feels good about playing. On the other side of the Rift on the opposing team, players will likely express, “Why is she rushing after me forever? Please stop.”

Riot Yelough acknowledges that K’Sante taught them some lessons as well. “We’re aware of when a character has more tools than they’re supposed to have, or has tools configured in a way that causes a lot of frustration, and that leads to those kinds of memes.”

“We’re generally pretty good at making sure characters have the tools to do what the experience we’re trying to deliver needs, and we don’t want to give them more tools than they need,” explained Riot Yelough. “I think Ambessa’s lines are kind of the marquee of her set. Everything is built
around them.”

Arcane key visual with the full list of League of Legends champions in Arcane and the episode they appear
Credit: Riot Games, Fortiche

He hopes that through her kit, League of Legends players will feel “relentless”, like “tyrant in your face” when you play her, which is delivered through her streaks. After all, she is designed for the hardcore OG League of Legends player.

“You understand the game. You’re here to be a hype animal, to run people over and die trying. So we think her skill floor is actually pretty high,” Riot Yelough said.

LoL players will also notice that she also lacks a lot of tools in her kit that a typical fighter doesn’t – she doesn’t have hard crowd control (just a slow one), she’s forced to build aggressively rather than defensively, and apparently her teamfight output isn’t very powerful.

“Our players are somewhat allergic to the word dash, which is what it is. But that doesn’t mean we have to stop our characters jumping, and it doesn’t mean we have to stop putting things in our character sets that are exciting and feel really good,” Riot Yelough concluded. “We just have to make sure we do it in a way that’s fair.”

READ MORE: Exclusive: Why do you love Arcane so much? Creators reveal behind-the-scenes secrets