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tigerkirby215 · 2 years

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5e Taliyah, the Stoneweaver build (League of Legends)

(Artwork by Evan “Somnicidal” Monteiro. Made for Riot Games.)

Taliyah rework let’s gooooo!

Taliyah has always been a character I was kinda scared to try. She just seemed way too complicated; one of those “tryhard onetrick” champs that’s only played by dedicated mains or Challenger players like Aphelios and Rell... This is the point where I make a side mention that I play Aphelios and Rell.

But her mini-rework has peaked my interest, and much to my surprise no one (coff Doran’s & Dragons lol) have tried their hand at making Taliyah yet. So it’s about time I took a crack at an earth-bender, hm?

GOALS

Throw another rock! - We need to throw a lot of rocks. Man if only there was a way to throw a bunch high damage magical rocks at once.

Never dismiss what's beneath your feet - Uprooting the ground beneath your foes feet is a good way to trip them up and deal some heavy damage!

You can run from a landslide; I prefer to ride it! - The only thing more efficient then a big wall is being able to ride that big wall into the middle of the fray!

RACE

I would love to make Taliyah an Earth Genasi, but for one she’s a human and for two earth genasi sucks. So we’re going to make her a Variant Human with +1 to your Charisma and Constitution (but feel free to put any of those +1s in your uneven stats if you roll for them), proficiency with the Perception skill to see dangers coming up on the sands, and whatever language you like. (But Primordial works well as a stone weaver!)

For your feat we’re actually going to change it up a little and take the Crusher feat. This isn’t a feat I talk about much: it gives you +1 to your Constitution but more importantly if you hit someone with Bludgeoning damage you can move them up to 5 feet in a direction of your choice. Additionally if you happen to crit with your Bludgeoning damage, all your allies have advantage to hit them until the start of your next turn!

ABILITY SCORES

15; CHARISMA - Charisma is both force of personality and magical ability, both of which we’ll need!

14; DEXTERITY - To surf along the rocks we’ll need to be light on our feet!

13; CONSTITUTION - You need to be sturdy to survive in Shurima, and by that I mean we don’t need the other stats much.

12; WISDOM - Earth-weaving is about knowing the earth and its surroundings.

10; STRENGTH - You need Strength to lift up big rocks, even if it’s with magic.

8; INTELLIGENCE - You’re more naturally-taught instead of school-taught, which is to say we need everything else more.

Feel free to put the +1s from your race / feat into any stat you happen to roll an uneven, if you decide to roll for stats. Also grabbing Moderately Armored if / when you can isn’t the worst idea but this build is rather feat starved.

BACKGROUND

When you travel around for long enough to meet the wandering Ronin himself you must be some sort of Outlander. You gain proficiency with Athletics and Survival as well as a musical instrument of your choice (ask your DM if you can perhaps swap this for Weaver’s Tools? Idk) and a language of your choice.

You picked up the Way of the Wanderer from your mentor, which is good for orienting yourself with the land and finding food and water for you and your friends!

(Artwork by SixMoreVodka Studios. Made for Legends of Runeterra by Riot Games. I don’t exactly have a lot of artwork of Taliyah to work with.)

THE BUILD

LEVEL 1 - SORCERER 1

Starting off as a Sorcerer for... yup; saving throws. But proficiency with Persuasion and Insight never hurt anyone. You’re probably wondering what Sorcerous Origin we’ll be going with since Stone Sorcerer is still UA (and doesn’t fit Taliyah well): well truth be told there isn’t really any Sorcerer that makes sense so I’m going to be grabbing good ol’ Aberrant Mind for more Psionic Spells as well as Telepathic Speech to keep to team-chat.

You know Mind Sliver innately, which yeah is a bit weird for Taliyah but it’s a good spell so I won’t look a gift horse in the mouth. You can also add more Divination or Enchantment spells to your spells known, which basically means you’re going to be the resident Detect Magic monkey. And I mean... Hex is always a good spell to have.

You also get 4 more cantrips and 2 regular spells. For your cantrips Mending and Mold Earth are kinda mandatory, Mage Hand will let you manipulate earth to grab objects from afar, and uhh... well Light is helpful. I’d love to take Magic Stone if only for the meme value but we’ll be getting something far better than any Sorcerer cantrip next level, so keeping to Mind Sliver is good enough for now.

The main reason we’re going into Sorcerer first (other than saving throws) is to get an early form of your E with Earth Tremor. Although yes Shield is rather necessary for Survival as a d6 hit die class early on.

LEVEL 2 - WARLOCK 1

Isn’t it hilarious that Genie Warlock is the literal only Earth elemental caster we currently have, since the Dao Genie Kind will give you the ability to do Bludgeoning damage with any of your attack rolls thank to Genie’s Vessel. In addition to Genie’s Wrath you also get Bottled Respite for a small, safe place to Short Rest. You may say that this doesn’t fit Taliyah but I think if you reflavor it as a small rock hovel for you to chill in underground it makes perfect sense, and as a DM I’d gladly allow your Genie’s Vessel to be your stone cloak!

You may be asking why we took the Crusher feat at level 1: Genie’s Wrath allows you to apply Bludgeoning damage to any attack roll you make once per turn, which means you can push people around with Crusher every turn regardless of what you cast! As long as it’s an Attack Roll, Crusher will work! This will have some great synergy with other parts of your kit later on but for now you can shove your foes around a bit during combat by hitting them with heavy stones!

Other than that you get Pact Magic for 2 cantrips and 2 leveled spells from the Warlock list, as well as Pact slots that come back on a Short Rest. Eldritch Blast isn’t quite throwing rocks but it’s the best you’re going to get for multiple blasts of ranged damage, and Prestidigitation will let you do all sorts of minor stoneweaving tricks. As far as leveled spells go there really isn’t much I want from 1st level of Warlock, so grab whatever you think will be useful until you get 2nd level Warlock spells.

And to top it off: you get proficiency with Light Armor! Despite Mage Armor making sense for Taliyah you genuinely don’t have the spells known / invocations to spare, so I’m going to suggest leather under the context that it’s “good enough.”

LEVEL 3 - WARLOCK 2

Second level Warlocks get Eldritch Invocations like Agonizing Blast to agonize your blasts, and Repelling Blast to push your foes around with a Seismic Shove!

Again: I don’t have any 1st level spells to recommend, so I just suggest waiting for those 2nd level spells.

LEVEL 4 - ROGUE 1

But we’re going to very quickly dip into Rogue first. Currently this just means proficiency with a new skill (take whatever you want from the Rogue list really, but maybe you should have Stealth proficiency idk) and Expertise in two of your skills: I’m going to recommend Perception and Survival but again you can take whatever you think makes sense for Taliyah.

You also get Thieves’ Cant and Sneak Attack but I will tell you right now: you likely won’t use either of them much.

LEVEL 5 - ROGUE 2

The real reason for the Rogue dip is to get Cunning Action, which is how I’m going to flavor Taliyah’s Rock Surfing passive. Use your Bonus Action to Dash or Disengage (or Hide) as you dance along the rocks!

(Artwork by SixMoreVodka Studios. Made for Legends of Runeterra by Riot Games.)

LEVEL 6 - SORCERER 2

Taking a quick value Sorcerer level for two reasons. Firstly Font of Magic will let you turn your spare Warlock spell slots into Sorcery points which can then be refunded later in the day for more 1st level spell slots (currently.) Secondly I want the big Catapult rock from Taliyah’s mini-rework!

LEVEL 7 - WARLOCK 3

3rd level Warlocks get their Pact Boon and truth be told none of them particularly fit Taliyah or impact or build, so I’m actually going to suggest Pact of the Talisman to weave gifts for your friends! Of course pick what you think will be useful (can’t go wrong with a familiar I guess) but Talisman arguably fits the best.

More importantly however you can learn 2nd level spells like Shatter (to split some rocks), Earthbind (which isn’t the greatest of spells but fits Taliyah), Misty Step (for Flash), and most importantly from the Dao Genie list: Spike Growth! You now finally have Unraveled Earth in the form of Spike Growth which (in combination with Crusher and Repelling Blast) unlocks a rather disgusting cheese-grater combo with Seismic Shove. Repelling Blast lets you push a foe 10 feet back and Crusher lets you move a foe 5 feet in any direction; Spike Growth will do 2d4 damage to a foe for every 5 feet they move on the warped ground.

Are you starting to see the picture? By pushing an enemy 15 feet along your Unraveled Earth you’re doing 6d4 damage with no save! And since Repelling Blast has unlimited uses per turn you can activate it with both your Eldritch Blasts for even more shoving and even more free damage. That isn’t even mentioning the Difficult Terrain you make, meaning that every time you shove your enemies back it’s all the harder for them to approach you. Perhaps the only downside of this combo is that it doesn’t scale too well with your spell slots, but throughout all stages of the game this bread-and-butter combo should be your main source of DPS for most fights.

LEVEL 8 - WARLOCK 4

It’s about time to get our first Ability Score Improvement, and seeing that Charisma controls basically everything we do currently increasing that by 2 should be a top priority.

You can also learn another Warlock cantrip like Minor Illusion to make shapes with the stones to fool your foes. As for leveled spells I’d suggest waiting for...

LEVEL 9 - WARLOCK 5

5th level Warlocks get another Eldritch Invocation, and sure you could take something like Tomb of Levistus for a Zhonya's Hourglass in case of emergency, but I’m going to double down on Seismic Shove with Grasp of Hadar. Yes this means more moving foes along Unraveled Earth: depending on your DM (who’s probably going to be pissed with your cheese-grater strats by now) you can hypothetically move a foe 10 feet forward before moving them 15 feet back for a grand total of 10d4 damage with no save. Just hope that your DM isn’t ticked enough to start permabanning Taliyah.

If you don’t want to be a prick with a cheese grater you can also grab Meld into Stone to ride along the walls of the jungle, and Create Food and Water. Because you know what’s fun? One party member completely negating the need for food. But it’s okay because the food tastes bland and unappealing.

LEVEL 10 - WARLOCK 6

6th level Genie Warlocks have an Elemental Gift: for one you now resist Bludgeoning damage, which is pretty good considering that Bludgeoning damage is one of the three most common damage types.

More importantly however you can give yourself a 30 foot flying speed (with a hover!) for 10 minutes! I’d consider this a very advanced version of rock surfing, which is to say “you get this ability from Genie Warlock so don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

And finally I’d recommend grabbing Counterspell for no particular reason other than “we don’t need any other spells on this list and it’s a good spell to have.” Block some incoming damage with a stone wall or break a foe’s concentration by kicking up dust in their eyes: flavor is free and flavor is great!

(Artwork by u/QT0ri on Reddit.)

LEVEL 11 - SORCERER 3

Finally going back to Sorcerer to be able to cast some of your lower leveled spells, and for Metamagic. Use your Sorcery points on Quickened Spell to throw another rock, or Heightened Spell to give enemies disadvantage on saving throws against your spells, of which you will have a lot of saving throw spells.

Speaking of spells: for a start take See Invisibility and Locate Object as your Psionic Spells. Sure there are probably more useful options (such as Hold Person and Tasha’s Mind Whip) but these are the ones I could most easily justify as stoneweaver spells. And also take Maximilian’s Earthen Grasp as probably the quintessential low-level earth manipulation spell. Yeah I realize I’m saying “low level spells” when you’re total level 11, but that’s the nature of multiclassing as a beginner stoneweaver.

LEVEL 12 - SORCERER 4

4th level Sorcerers get another Ability Score Increase which means we can finally max out Charisma, so that even if our spells aren’t the most spectacular they’ll still pack a punch!

You can also learn another cantrip like Shocking Grasp to give yourself some defense in melee range. (Yes it’s not stone based, but you gotta work with what you’ve got in a pinch.) As far as spells known go there are some good ones at 1st level, but I’m going to suggest waiting until you can learn...

LEVEL 13 - SORCERER 5

3rd level spells like Erupting Earth to (again) perform a Seismic Shove on your foes! I’m also going to suggest Tidal Wave, which yes isn’t inherently stone-based but you could reflavor it as an avalanche on your foes.

Sending is actually a pretty nice spell to have from the Aberrant Mind list, but there isn’t much else that really makes sense except for... Clairvoyance, I guess? Put some wards down at a distance and accept that I had to take some form of Sorcerer and Aberrant Mind was the best one on offer.

And finally Tasha gave you Magical Guidance, allowing you to spend Sorcery points to reroll failed ability checks.

(Artwork by 백업 on Tumblr)

LEVEL 14 - SORCERER 6

Granted it wasn’t really for Psionic Sorcery. Being able to cast your Psionic Spells with Sorcery points (without any components) is nice but most of the spells I opted for from Psionic Spells are utility based.

The main reason I went for Aberrant Mind quite honestly is that every other Sorcerer gets level 6 abilities that don’t fit Taliyah. If you’re either never going to hit level 14 or don’t mind some weird abilities I could suggest Clockwork Soul (getting Aid is just that good, although more Transmutation spells are nice) or Storm Sorcery (the mobility when casting spells fit Taliyah well but Storm Guide completely didn’t fit.) I also considered Draconic Bloodline just for the innate AC if you want a stronger character at the lower levels.

At least you get Psychic Defenses for resistance to Psychic damage and advantage against Charms and Fears, as well as Sleet Storm for another area control spell to fight casters and keep enemies at bay by shoving them aside!

LEVEL 15 - WARLOCK 7

Back to Warlock you can now grab another Eldritch Invocation like Tomb of Levistus, because now’s a good time to get Zhonya's. Why yes I am taking invocations from lower levels because that was the main reason for the Warlock multiclass in the first place.

And hey look at that: Stone Shape! If you want to slowly make a wall of stone this is the spell for you!

LEVEL 16 - WARLOCK 8

We got another Ability Score Improvement, and we’ve been sitting on an uneven Constitution score for awhile now. Sure you could take Skill Expert (or like, Durable I guess) but Chef fits Taliyah’s flavor personality and offers up some fun roleplay. Increase your Constitution by 1, share good food with your friends during Short Rests to let them heal an extra d8 when using hit die, and make snacks for your friends to give them some temporary hitpoints in a pinch!

Oh and you can grab Dimension Door in a pinch to teleport back to base, or anywhere else you can surf to. And you can even bring a friend!

(Artwork by Jean “Curing” Go. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 17 - WARLOCK 9

9th level Warlocks get another Eldritch Invocation, and what if I unironically suggested Otherworldly Leap? Okay jokes aside (since you can fly) feel free to grab any Invocation you think will be useful. Or like, just grab Eldritch Mind I guess for advantage on your Concentration checks.

And finally you get Wall of Stone! About time eh? Do exactly what it says on the tin and make a wall of stone in a variety of ways to surf along and block your foes!

LEVEL 18 - WARLOCK 10

10th level Genie Warlocks can weave a safe place for their friends to stay thanks to Sanctuary Vessel! You know that Genie’s Vessel that you could go inside? Well now you can bring your friends! Sure the most flavorful way to handle this would be to dig yourself a hole to keep your vessel in while your party rests, but by total level 18 there’s a lot of neat tactics you can take with a Bag of Holding the party can hide inside. As long as someone can send you on your way you can easily sneak around wherever you want.

Well that’s enough of me nerding about Genie Warlock. Did you expect more spells known? Nope you only get cantrips. And I suppose there’s no harm in Chill Touch by this level for some Grievous Wounds.

If you want you can replace some of your old spells known with new 4th or 5th level spells. Counterspell and Create Food and Water (and maybe Shatter too, now that you can get Fireball as a Sorcerer) could be replaced with Creation, Hold Monster, or Synaptic Static. Teleportation Circle could also be a fun spell, given that you’re level 18.

LEVEL 19 - SORCERER 7

Taking our last few levels in Sorcerer for more Sorcery points, although Evard’s Black Tentacles is certainly a good spell to have if you reflavor it to stone magic. Summon Aberration is a little harder to reflavor however so I’d suggest Raulothim's Psychic Lance instead for an actual damage option from your Psionic Spells.

And finally you can grab a spell like Storm Sphere, because it does Bludgeoning damage! But jokes aside the amount of stone spells at this level are few and far between, so you’ll have to settle to reflavoring Storm Sphere as a storm of rocks. Or just use Evard’s Black Tentacles instead because that’s a really strong spell.

LEVEL 20 - SORCERER 8

Our final level is the 8th level of Sorcerer, mostly to increase your maximum number of Sorcery points and spell slots. This does mean you get one last Ability Score Improvement and by level 20? You can take whatever you think will be good for your character. Similarly you can take just about any spell at this level, as long as it makes you happy.

FINAL BUILD

PROS

You're not a problem, you're a learning opportunity - Mixing Sorcerer and Warlock is always a potent combo for spell slot melting and Sorcery point shenanigans. Your lower level Warlock spells are still good even at high levels, making casting them with your Sorcerer spell slots a good tradeoff!

Problems should be broken up into little pieces - Remember the Spike Growth cheese grater strats from early levels? Yeah pushing foes around will always be a useful asset, especially when you can shove them into all manner of dangerous AoEs and keep them at bay by uprooting the earth beneath their feet!

This world is a tapestry of our own making - Even when not ripping apart dungeons at their seams you still have more than enough power, with quickfire damaging spells and even a good amount of utility magics and good skill checks to help outside of combat. 23 passive Perception is always nice!

CONS

If I stumble, I have the earth to catch me - In the pursuit of rock surfing we miss out on the potential investment in Medium armor, or just more Dexterity. Cunning Action is useful yes but at higher levels there’s simply better things to be using your Bonus Action on.

My father always said I was a shepherd's nightmare - Your party members might not appreciate all the Difficult Terrain you’re creating. You don’t exactly play nice with melee allies and depending on the arena you’re in they might end up sitting out while you dance along the rocks.

That may have gotten away from me - It did kinda take us awhile to get Stone Wall, huhn? If you want Taliyah’s abilities first and a flexible character second perhaps rushing through Warlock levels would’ve been the better idea.

But remember that "True learning is just a stone's throw away." Every mistake is a chance for a new opportunity, and everyone you meet has a thousand stories to tell. So don’t be afraid to mess up, and have those around you catch you when you fall! Build a world for you and your friends to experience together! Or maybe just focus on living in the world your DM created.