The Wind Fish! (in name only, for it is neither - so the saying goes!) (Source photo came from here)
A Google image search for Wind Fish can brighten any day in about ten minutes.
He's essentially a Buddhist humpback whale in outer space. (Comically undersized wings thrown in for good measure.)
What does this have to do with LoL?
The story is right here. In February 2012, IronStylus had a big post about Leona, his dream job at Riot, and his dream marriage. He went so far as to say that he was so happy that it sometimes made him afraid that it was all a dream he might wake up from at any moment. When another commenter speculated about the metaphysical implications for the rest of us, I immediately posted the above picture in the comments (the image has since been deleted from the servers as a part of periodic cleanup), since basically the whole conversation up until then was one big spoiler for the ending of Link's Awakening.
Anyway, IronStylus's reaction speaks for itself:
Ok, but what does this have to do with LoL?
Alright, so my hope is that the Wind Fish is still vivid in the mind of IronStylus, and that he's been, at the very least, marinating this inspiration for some kind of support champion. Not necessarily a whale in outer space, but certainly a breathtaking, otherworldly manifestation of cosmic benevolence.
Problem 1: Riot does not want to promote passive and defensive playing. Soraka is the closest thing to The Wind Fish that LoL has right now, and she's already in a slightly marginalized spot and facing a bit of scrutiny from Riot, even after she was reworked some time ago to be a stronger CC source and a weaker healing bot. Finding a way to communicate the "cosmic benevolence" theme within the constraints of Riot's philosophy of active, aggressive, and well-paced gameplay could be a major challenge.
Problem 2: The other issue is that any potential Wind Fish champion would be somewhat thematically redundant with Soraka - she sort of fits the Wind Fish concept, but her Wind Fish factor is about a 6 or 7, while I would love to see it turned up to 11. Seeing as both Vayne and Lucian both fit the Batman archetype (i.e., the vengeful hunter of dark things in the night), my feeling is that a Wind Fish champion could be sufficiently differentiated from Soraka in theme, role, lore, and the rest.
If Riot were to roll out a Wind Fish champion as the centerpiece of a Support QoL rework, there would not be enough Fry memes to contain my glee. I know that the process is lengthy and prone to delays and returns to the drawing board, but I can hope The Wind Fish is working his magic behind the scenes even now.
Fingers crossed,
MTaur
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