Wukong, the Monkey King Review

Wukong, the Monkey King is the newest champion to enter the ranks of League of Legends’ finest warriors.  Wukong is Riot Games’ rendition of the famously known Monkey King.  Wukong, is considered a bruiser/tanky DPS and can be somewhat of an assassin due to one of his abilities.  Wukong definitely meets the idea of the Monkey King being a devious person however as a speedy agile and combination skilled champion it does not.  It meets one side of Monkey King that everyone knows him for, which they do well with Wukong’s ability Decoy or his W ability.  This ability allows him to create a copy of himself and go stealth for 1.5 seconds before the copy attacks and disappears.  This is a great ability to add an escape ability, but also provides the sense of being a trouble maker since he can hide and plot other attacks while his decoy keeps people occupied.  However, this ability only truly fools those at the lower ELO level in my opinion as a stationary target is kind of obvious that it is the clone and therefore will not be attacked. Wukong makes for a great early game with his poke harass combination of his E ability, Nimbus Strike allowing him to dash in and deal damage followed by his Q ability, Crushing Blow.  This is great in the lane for harassing, but sadly the damage seems to fall off late game.  His damage overall falls off as the game progresses and he is only really capable of taking down the opposing team’s carry if allowed to reach them, which is rarely the case as Wukong is a slow melee champion with just boots and a lack luster ultimate that is great for CC.  However, aside from that the damage is lackluster as it can never reach close to its full damage even with armor penetration from players getting armor items.  This isn’t a bad move really in Riot Games’ part as a tanky DPS should not be able to do massive amounts of damage.  However, for a bruiser that is melee having lack luster survivability and mediocre damage makes him a fun champion to play with his abilities, but lacking any form of role on a team.

I believe that Wukong needs some minor buffs to help him compete with other bruisers as there are others out there that just are capable of doing more damage and closing the gap easier on opposing team carries.  That is not to say that Wukong currently is not flawed currently on the live version of the game as his Q ability is bugged along with other champions that have a percent armor and magic resist shred.  Currently these abilities only shred off the opposing champion’s base armor and magic resistance instead of their total, which is quite a big flaw on Riot Games’ part to release a champion who’s core abilities revolve around lowering their opponent’s armor in order to deal any kind of significant damage.

Wukong’s ultimate is fun to use as it is Garen’s, Judgement ability mixed in with a bit of Rammus’, Powerball and Blitcrank’s, Power Fist.  His ultimate is great for CC and early game damage but for an ultimate it deals lackluster damage due to armor and the fact it can easily be stopped from doing any damage at all.  His ultimate can easily be made useless by any form of CC that is a stun, snare, or slow.  For an ultimate that is a core part of his damage this is a little unacceptable as Garen’s, Judgement has a remove slow and partial slow immunity tied into it and is only an ability.  Wukong’s is similar but is an ultimate with no such thing to prevent him from not dealing any damage and practically being ignored for the rest of the team fight if his ultimate is stopped.  Wukong’s movement speed and abilities have some synergy, but lack in one key feature to allow him to deal any damage without having to rely on items.  Wukong lacks no other CC aside from his ultimate to close the gap as a melee character.  Wukong’s, Nimbus Strike provides a dash for a gap closer, but without any kind of slow, champions can easily escape him before he has any chance of auto attacking or even doing a E to Q combination unless the Q ability was pre-queued up similar to a Jax player would do with Empower and Leap Strike.  As a tanky DPS, his damage becomes sub par as he replaces much needed damage for survivability.  If built oppositely with damage, then he becomes easily killed with no survivability, while still dealing lack luster damage unless built with some form of burst like critical strikes RNG.

Despite Wukong’s many flaws he is a fun champion to play, but still very hard to place on a team and feel satisfactory in any form of team fight when his ultimate can easily be stopped or deal mediocre damage.  As for fixes to Wukong, I will not say he needs much, but as of right now while his Q is bugged he could use some form of immunity with his ultimate or at least a possible chance to knock up champions twice during its duration.  Another would be to have some form of slow or daze stun effect on his Nimbus Strike so that he can actually catch up to and land melee auto attacks on the opposing champion so he is not just wasting his mana.  Overall, Wukong needs some form of utility to be useful on the team and useful in any 1 versus 1 fights as champions can usually get away freely if they have more movement speed then Wukong does.  Some minor movement speed buffs to his base movement speed similar to Pantheon’s movement speed so as to catch people and get away a bit easier, which will be great for Decoy traps and team strategies.  This is my assessment of Wukong as of right now, but if and when the bug on his Q gets fixed by Riot Games, then Wukong may be a force to be reckoned with for damage similar to Ezreal who has no real form of CC until Trinity Force is bought in order to catch up to opponents.