A few years ago, Riot released the loudest League of Legends skin ever made: Super Galaxy Rumble. The skin is gorgeous and cool, but talks non-stop and has the loudest sound effects in human history. Last year, with Kled, Riot released another very talkative and loud champion.

With Riot’s newest champion, they stepped their loud game up a notch. Meet Rakan, The Charmer: League of Legend’s loudest and most obnoxious champion to date.

Rakan is part of a duo, a pair of love birds if you will. His MUCH BETTER half, Xayah, is a cool, collected and bad ass AD Carry bird lady, where as Rakan...lacks tact...or a volume button. However, try not to hold that against him, because he is a fast moving support with a kit that just won’t quit. Let’s take a look at what he can do.

The Kit

Passive - Fey Feathers

Riot’s Tooltip:

Surrender@20

What does it do:

Rakan gains a shield based on his level and AP. The cooldown is fairly long, but Rakan can shave time off by dealing damage to enemy champions.

This is a fairly straight forward passive, and one that you probably won’t spend a lot of time thinking about. As long as you are doing your support thing, it will be up and ready to protect you when you need it.

The only time that you may want to pay very specific attention to this is before you leap into the enemy team. But lets not get ahead of ourselves.

Q - Gleaming Quill

Riot’s Tooltip:

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What does it do:

Rakan fires a skill shot in a targeted direction, dealing damage to the first enemy it strikes. Rakan will gain an area heal if he manages to strike an enemy champion or epic jungle monster. This heal will go off automatically when Rakan gets close enough to an ally, or after a few seconds if he is alone.

This is both Rakan’s main poke skill and his main sustain. There is an ebb and flow (not to be confused with the Nami ability) to Gleaming Quill that allows for a frequent opportunity to damage your enemies and heal up the back line.

The heal is certainly not out of this world (he isn’t Soraka), but it isn't minuscule either. This could allow for some overly enthusiastic positioning, allowing both yourself and your AD Carry to give some extra poke here and there while still staying topped off. A skilled Rakan should almost always out trade his enemies, especially if he is playing with an AD Carry that he can trust.

W - Grand Entrance

Riot’s Tooltip:

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What does it do:

Rakan selects a target location around him, runs to it instantly, pauses, and then knocks up all targets around him, dealing a small amount of damage.

With Grand Entrance, think Rek’Sai knock up but with less work. Rakan is a bouncing ball of energy, and is flashy as all hell. As such, he has a lot of unique movement spells. Grand Entrance is but one of them.

The knock up is, of course, very powerful. A no-nonsense knock up available a couple of times a minute offers a lot of potential and makes Rakan and instantly desirable pick to almost any comp. But this is also a dash to a target location, meaning that Rakan can use it to escape on his own if need be.

In order to get the perfect knock up, Rakan will have to be in position first. His enemies have a brief second to dash or flash once Rakan arrives, so getting the jump on the enemy is key to success. Luckily, Rakan has even more tricks up his sleeve...

E - Battle Dance

Riot’s Tooltip:

Surrender@20

What does it do:

Rakan jumps instantly to a nearby allied champion, granting them a small shield upon his arrival. This ability can be re-cast on another ally or the same ally for free within five seconds of the initial cast. If Rakan is jumping to Xayah, the range is nearly doubled.

This ability is really what makes Rakan sing, as it has nearly limitless potential. Rakan can weave his way in and out of a fight within seconds, and never manage to take any damage.

Imagine a situation where Rakan shoots out a Gleaming Quill, Battle Dances his way over to an ally, heals them, Grand Entrances out into the fray, knocking up a bunch of enemies, and then returns to his allies using Battle Dance once again. All of this can happen within a matter of seconds with Rakan. He is one of League’s most mobile champions to date, even giving Lee Sin a run for his money.

All of this being said, Rakan has to be careful not to get too eager. Battle Dance has a range, and if Rakan is not communicating well with his team, he could very easily overextend his way to an early death. Be careful and look before you use either of your leaps.

R - The Quickness

Riot’s Tooltip:

Surrender@20

What does it do:

Rakan breaks out into a sprint, coating himself in beautiful feathers. If he collides with an enemy champion while sprinting, he will leap over them, charming them instantly and dealing damage. Rakan gains a ton of extra movement speed after he charms his first champion.

This ability is appropriately named for this champion, as he is very, very quick at all times. The Quickness has a lot of possibilities built in and there is almost never a bad time to use it.

First, let’s talk engage. Rakan can Grand Entrance his way into a fight, knock up some enemies, and then keep them in place with The Quickness. Alternatively, Rakan could engage with The Quickness itself, corralling some enemies together before he Grand Entrances his way into a big knock up.

Rakan can also use this as somewhat of a get out of jail free card, although that probably won’t be optimal. If Rakan is caught in the middle of the enemy team, he can active The Quickness and hall tail out of the bad area and into range of some allies. A brave Rakan could also use this to charm a line of charging enemies, allowing his team some extra escape time before joining them with Battle Dance.

The Quickness is not going to displace your enemies in a massive way, like Command: Shockwave. However, it is an excellent way to group your enemies up, keeping them all confined in a small area for some time. If a team mis-positions and stands as five, a great use of The Quickness could extend that mis-position even further, giving Rakan’s teammates some extra time to react.

Special Recall - Lover’s Leap

When Rakan is in a game with Xayah, he gains an additional passive: Lover’s Leap.

Lovers leap will allow Xayah and Rakan to recall together. Meaning that one player can begin recalling and the other can join them, syncing up their recalls and effectively reducing the total recall time of the second player. Hypothetically speaking, Rakan could begin to recall while Xayah finishes farming the wave. She could then join him towards the tail end of his recall animation for her own swift trip back to the fountain.

The Build

When building Rakan, you want to consider both his ability to poke and his tankiness. He doesn’t necessarily strive in either of those areas. His poke is on a longer cooldown that some other supports and his health is average at best. That’s why we are going to build Eye of the Oasis.

This will function nicely as both a sustain item, a gold item, and a sight stone for Rakan. The sustain is especially good, as it will allow Rakan to keep running around without having to return home often.

For the rest of the build, you almost certainly want to pick up Boots of Mobility. A Locket of the Iron Solari is a staple support item for anyone and especially great on mobile champions like Rakan. Redemption is also a great go to choice, as it will grant Rakan some additional utility.

Speaking of utility, Knight’s Vow is a fine item to build as well. It will provide some additional defense to your partner and even grant you movement speed towards them, something that every Rakan desperately needs more of. If you are feeling especially frisky (and Rakan always is), a Righteous Glory could be an interesting choice if you are ahead.

In the end, build what the game calls for, which may even be more damage from something like an Ardent Censer or you could need the cleanse from Mikael’s Crucicble. Supports should strive to be flexible in their builds, so do your best to judge the situation and experiment.

Conclusion

Rakan is a really cool bird man, even if he is obnoxious as all get out. His interactions with Xayah are certainly interesting as well. I am fascinated to see how they will play out in a live setting, whether either of these champions will be pick-able on their own and if they are OP together. But those are things that we will learn in time.

For now, seeing a very mobile support is pretty refreshing. Many of the best supports in the past have been damage machines like Zyra or CC factories like Thresh. It is certainly refreshing to see such a mobile character be placed into the support role. Rakan offers a lot of potential to many varied comps, and that is exciting.

His future looks bright, but someone should probably sow his mouth shut like Ryan Reynolds in X-Men Origins: Wolverine (I am sorry to invoke this movie at all, but damn this dude is just...too loud).

Riot Games