Nilah in League of Legends is designed to build like a traditional marksman despite being a melee botlaner

After prolonged speculation and rumors, Nilah, "The Joy Unbound", has finally been revealed in League of Legends.

The popular MOBA's 161st Champion was meant to be a melee bot laner from the very beginning of development. This provided Riot developers with a fantastic opportunity to apply many of the lessons that previous melee bot laners have passed along to them over the years.

Before any champion is officially released, Riot initially prepares by considering the various builds that players will test out with that champion. Interestingly, Nilah was created with a build similar to that of a conventional marksman, and the champion development team even applied crit scaling to her skills as a lever to encourage this.

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League of Legends' latest ADC Nilah is set to be a traditional marksman

Nilah leans towards builds for a traditional marksman (Image via Riot Games - League of Legends)

According to Riot, players have a history of coming up with some pretty bizarre builds, which are all well and good as long as it doesn't ruin the game for their teammates and opponents.

Thus, the developers wanted Nilah to be the high-dps 'squishy' champion that people anticipate from that role because they are committed to optimizing her as a bot lane skirmisher and not a tank. To ensure that players feel rewarded for itemizing crits on Nilah, Riot will be paying extra close attention to how the champion is built in the coming days.

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How it was like for Riot to create Nilah, a Melee Skirmisher, for the bot lane

Nilah dev concepts (Image via Riot Games - League of Legends)

On the Champion Insights' blog, Riot cited the example of Yasuo, who even after being an off-meta, happens to be the closest thing League of Legends has to a melee bot laner today.

Yasuo certainly possesses many great bot lane carry qualities such as scaling, being squishy, and strong synergies. However, his primary, and most popular, role has always been mid, which meant that his balance adjustments have always prioritized his health in that role.

This insight helped Riot identify an opportunity to create a melee champion in the game that would be balanced around the bot lane as their primary role and fulfill the skirmisher fantasy that players have been desperately requesting.

Nilah's official face revealed by Riot (Image via Riot Games)

Another great example that Riot mentioned is of Mordekaiser’s ghost dragon rework. While the devs built shared experiences and a ghost dragon into his kit to help him succeed in the bot lane, they learned that most players don’t like when champion picks completely change the dynamics of how the lane/game is played.

Thus, Riot knew that they needed to give Nilah a unique playstyle and kit without deviating too far from what marksmen and support players expect from bot lane carries in general. With past knowledge, Riot devs were able to set some pretty concrete goals for Nilah which were:

1. Find success in the bot lane as her primary role and balance her with this key objective in mind.
2. She should not dramatically alter the way bot lane is played and should still deliver, to some degree, on what players expect from the traditional marksman role.
3. Nilah should be able to work with a wide variety of supports and have abilities that increase these synergies.

Riot assured fans that they will continually keep these goals in mind as the devs inevitably make balance adjustments and fine tune Nilah’s kit upon her release.