Lissandra’s new work-in-progress passive has been revealed with the League of Legends champion’s new ability capitalizing on her ice mage theme.
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Back in March, Riot Games said that a new passive for Lissandra was being tested internally. The goal was to give her a “more satisfying passive” and “a bit more power” while also encouraging Lissandra players to be more proactive in lane. Now that it’s been tested internally for a while, Riot Games revealed the first look at the passive that keeps the “Iceborn” name of the current passive and could be released for the champion if the testing goes well.
Iceborn
“When a champion Lissandra has damaged within the last 3 seconds dies they become a Frozen Statue. Frozen Statues slow nearby enemies by 30%. After 2.5 seconds Frozen Statues shatter, dealing X (+Y AP ratio) magic damage to nearby enemies.”
The passive adds to Lissandra’s already huge amount of crowd control by giving her another way to inhibit enemies’ movements. Should this new passive make it to the live servers, it’ll mean Lissandra has a root, a stun, a self-stasis, and now three different ways to slow enemies down. Riot Meddler also said in the passive’s reveal that the statues created count as terrain, so they’ll both block movement and allow for interactions with champions that can use terrain like Poppy and Vayne.
It’s also another offensive tool in her kit compared to the current Iceborn passive that gives Lissandra a free ability with no mana cost every so often, its cooldown reduced every time she lands a form of crowd control. Riot’s intent behind giving Lissandra the new passive, as explained by Riot Meddler, is to improve the champion’s contributions to team fights that involve multiple enemies, though it admittedly doesn’t have a huge impact early on in lane.
“Use cases include getting a zone of control after diving in and killing a backline target and helping zone enemies after killing enemy divers or other front line,” Riot Meddler explained. “Doesn’t have as much impact early game, but has proven useful in some early 2v2s when both junglers show up and early objective fights. If going ahead with it would be paired with some mana cost reductions to her kit.”
The passive isn’t guaranteed to be released in this exact form though, but more internal testing should lead to a decision within the next week or so on whether it’s the right passive for her. Riot Meddler added that this would mean more visual and audio effects need to be created if this passive becomes permanent, so it still might be a while before players everywhere get to use it themselves.
