Why 'League of Legends' Ornn has the Perfect Debuff for a Blacksmith

League of Legends' Ornn is now live in-game with item-building missions to accompany the blacksmith, and a AMA session is underway on Reddit with the champion's design team.

Among questions related to his mysterious lore and his team-oriented gameplay, one of the best questions to be asked so far was related to the unique Brittle debuff that Ornn can apply to enemies. By using either his Bellows Breath or his Call of the Forge God ultimate, Ornn can make his enemies Brittle, a debuff that causes auto attacks to knock back these champions and also increases the duration of the next immobilizing effect against them.

But unlike other debuffs or forms of CC that are shared between champions, Ornn is the only one that can apply Brittle to his enemies. His teammates can uses it, but only if he first makes the combo happen.

According to RiotSquad5, Ornn's designer, the Brittle mechanic revolves around making Ornn more of a threat in teamfights.

"Brittle was a product of trying to find something that Ornn could bring to a team strategically that also fit in with his thematic," Squad5 replied when asked about the inspiration behind Ornn's debuff. "From the thematic side I liked the idea of 'striking while the iron is hot' or literally having metal heated up to a point where it would break."

But Ornn has to be able to survive in his own lane when not assisting in teamfights, another goal that was kept in mind for the debuff as well as the steps needed to trigger it.

"From the strategic side I wanted something that could inform what allies Ornn likes to be picked with, while having abilities that would work for him alone as well," Squad5 continued. "Landed on CC being a trigger there since tanks naturally have a lot, and CC in our game is usually a big moment."

Other questions such as Ornn's and early abilities that have since been scrapped were also topics that were discussed. Some of these conversations have been touched on before, but others are pretty new insights into Ornn.

Ornn is now live to purchase and play as in League of Legends, and you can dig through the rest of the Reddit AMA here.