With the new ranked season beginning this weekend and a new patch just around the corner, Riot Games unveiled its newest champion in League of Legends for beta release yesterday: Jhin, the Virtuoso.
While not much is known about the lore behind Jhin, fans speculate that he may have some relation to Orianna due to a robotic and mechanic build and art style. While his origin story might not be clear, there’s a lot to discuss about his playstyle.
By default Jhin is a ranged marksman. Most associate that role to the bottom lane, but the best comparisons for Jhin are actually Xerath and Varus, both of whom have spent a lot of time in the mid lane last season. Like Varus, Jhin is likely an attack damage champion due to a heavy focus on both auto attacking and critical strike in his abilities.
His passive is Whisper, a gun that chambers four shots in a round, with the final shot doing extra damage based on the missing health from his target. What makes the ability more effective is that building critical strike and attack speed items increase his attack damage overall, instead of increasing those individual stats.
This will likely see Jhin develop different item builds than other marksmen. Items that would build well on Jhin include Essence Reaver, which gives mana restoration based on critical strikes, Infinity Edge, the highest critical strike chance item in the game, and Phantom Dancer, which gives a high amount of critical strike chance and attack speed.
His Q is Dancing Grenade, a bouncing explosive which hits multiple targets in a row. If it kills one of these targets, it does more damage on the next drop. Much like Xerath’s Arcanopulse and Varus’ Piercing Arrow, Jhin’s W fires in a long, straight line, hitting all targets in its path.
Captive Audience, his E, is similar to that of Nidalee’s, placing a mark on the target which comes in handy when combined with the W. The trap slows then later detonates, causing damage to all in its path.
For his ultimate, Jhin marks a cone into which he fires four shots that slow and deal damage based off missing health. It’s essentially mixture of Miss Fortune and Xerath’s ultimates.
Jhin’s playstyle should offer a new character for former Varus mid lane players. The champion served as a staple for a portion of season five, and having an attack damage mid laner is great when your top laner is ability power based.
As for Jhin’s voice, a YouTube has released a video with samples mashed together. Although the voice actor is unknown, the reverb and tonal delay of the voice add an interesting mechanical sound to the character:
Image via Riot Games
