What’s with the three fingers? Why does he have so many eyes (are those even eyes)? Who designed this champion?! Ponder these questions and more as we start off our analysis of Jax, the Grandmaster at Arms.
Enter the Grandmaster. So good, the only weapon he’s allowed to use is a poorly colored, strangely shaped lamppost.
Lore Refresher
Note: Jax’s lore has not been updated, so mentions of the League and Institute of War still remain. This will be the case for a lot of the early champs – keep it in mind!
Back in the day, Jax was a mercenary; a talented soldier-for-hire. For reasons unknown to all but the League’s former leader, Jax was placed on the top of the list of candidates to become a champion. Of course, he passed their test with flying colors. Word soon spread that he was a deadly fighter, and the new leader made a move to place restrictions upon Jax’s actions within the League. This angered Jax, so he took matters into his own hands. He spurned the restrictions placed upon him for one of his own: from this day onward, he would only fight with a brass lamppost.
Splash Art Analysis
Jax’s original art leaves me grappling with the fact that they must have been going for a “let’s make this champion really odd and not tell anyone anything about it” design. He’s got three purple fingers per hand and weird swirly marks on them as well. His outfit is covered in a strange symbol that’s made up of a circle with a bunch of dots in it – does this mean he’s only wearing a mask with a symbol on it and that he doesn’t actually have seven eyes? Plus, I mean, he’s wearing hammer pants.
Fast forward to when Riot has the resources to make good quality splash art, and here we are! This art really personifies Jax as a powerful champion, despite his odd weapon. His body is HUGE, and his stance is commanding. His outfit doesn’t look nearly as silly in this new art; the weird symbols are still present, but his belt is vastly cooler looking and he has a fancy new fur trim on his cape and a feathery plumage coming out of his hood. The actual lamp on the post looks much, much better. It’s more detailed, and the color isn’t atrocious. His mask in this art appears to be glowing through the dots now… is his head a glowy blue orb? Does he actually have seven glowy eyes? I have no idea.
Ability Analysis
Warning: These abilities are really boring.
Passive – Relentless Assault: What this ability has to do with the icon is beyond me, but basically, Jax gains attack speed stacks as he attacks stuff. Because he’s a really good fighter, obviously.
Q – Leap Strike: Jax is such a master, he can jump onto his enemies and smack them in the face at the same time. He can jump onto his allies or wards too, but he’s a nice dude so he doesn’t smack them in the face.
W – Empower: He’s SO STRONG, he can even empower his own attacks!
E – Counter Strike: Woah, shocker, Jax is the best at dueling so he can dodge basic attacks and take less damage from aoe with this ability. After two seconds or another press of the button, nearby enemies are stunned and damaged based on the amount of damage dodged.
R – Grandmaster’s Might: Passively, Jax deals more damage every third basic attack. When activated, Jax gets super swole and gains a bunch of armor and magic resist for 8 seconds.
Animation Analysis
Alright so there’s not much to go over here. Jax’s in-game model is still based on the older splash art, which is why it looks so… old. His animations mostly consist of him twirling his lamppost around, or slapping his knee (above) over how hilariously stupid his outfit looks. I wish I had more to say about these animations but… there’s just nothing here to talk about folks.
Voice Analysis
Who wants a piece o’ the champ? At first I kept looking for other videos, because I thought there had to be longer than 42 seconds of voice acting. Apparently, Jax pretty much onlysays “Surprise, I’m back”, “Bring it on!”, “It’s on!”, “Ready for battle!” and “Lemme at em!”. So uh, basically, he likes fighting and has a deep voice. That’s all I’ve got.
Discussion
I’ve only really got two questions here:
- Why is Jax SO BORING?
- No but really, who allowed this?
We’re told nothing of his past other than “somehow he got chosen for the Institute and he’s a really good fighter.” And that’s his entire shtick. He fights things, he fights em real good.
If you had designed Jax, how would you have made him interesting in terms of visuals, animations, or voice acting? (literally any suggestions would be more interesting than he currently is)
Champion Tribunal 