Udyr Rework: The VGU so Close to Perfection it Hurts 

As someone who enjoys old udyr, I agree with the stances being abilities point. Old Udyr, for league of legends, is kind of like a long sword of a champion, very simple, but also versatile. You can go Full AD or AS, you can go bruiser, you can go rank, hell you can play him as an ap assassin, but the new one is so focused on his passive that the riot devs shorted his stances

"Next September, when the Skarner VGU releases" I'm pretty sure that each time someone asks when that VGU is gonna get released, Riot pushes it back by another week.

Been watching Nicky since he coached Ross, can't wait for yet another flawless upload.

The Udyr rework reminds me of the first time I played Nunu after his. It was a complete redo of a character's fantasy to make them feel how they are presented in lore. I'm starting to wonder if this is just a "Frejord" thing since no other rework has done this for me, but Udyr is, so far, one of my favorite reworks to date. Next to maybe Fiddle, Nunu, and Galio, I think this is one of the better ones. Definitely better than Kayle's, that's for sure lmao.

As an Udyr main I must say, all of Udyr's skins and visuals look amazing, the colour consistency is a little weird but they all still look great. His gameplay looks really enjoyable and seems to add a whole new level of skill expression, though lane Udyr does seem a little worse now cause you have to constantly spam stances making his sustain much worst in terms of mana, not to mention the scalings could use some tuning. And there are some more gripes i have with his animations and his literal bare back, but overall they did a great job.

Nicky. I just wanted you to know that it took me 35 minutes to finish an 18 minute video. This just goes to show how filled with details and care those videos are. Cheers mate, you are amazing.

The old passive was personally the most fun just it made it feel like an fighting game, so I hope it will comeback cuz I do agree the 2 aa speed with no ms increasing it feels meh.

Damn this man ruins his sleep schedule for pop out tons of masterpieces back to back But seriously dude get some well deserved rest my guy

I love that the spirit guard skin is not only a nod to the old udyr but is also actually canon

It’s because there’s no seal sister passive isn’t it ?

Thank you Nicky, for including one of the greatest weight lifters from Georgia - Lasha Talakhadze. It really hit the spot when I got the chance to saw him on your channel. Thanks to you, again!!!

Full stop, the Spirit Guard VGU, is by far my favorite i've seen from Riot in a WHILE, absolutely fucking love this, and I really can't wait to get onto the rift with updated Udyr

14:26 I like how he used the volibear stance on volibear

i like the idea of the stances having permanent buffs when you are in it!

1:20 holy shit I chocked with that hahahah Mordekaiser dragging you to Brazil will never get old

12:37 I think the reason that they swoped the coolers on tiger and bear is so new players wouldn't be confused that the volibear stance was stunning them.

15:48 that veigar trying to steal the jungle camp LMAOOOOO

I have an idea for the stances, like a mini awakened stance, Every 3 autos While Q and W are is active, you gain the same effect as old ones, E can stay the same But R, can be every third auto he ganes A storm that last for like a second, it appears and deals 2 tics of damage Just my thoughts tho

While I agree that the loss of stances is a sad thing I can understand why Riot did this. As already said it doesnt matter in the jg but as a laner the stance thing is conceptually really broken since it means that the windows to abuse Udyr would be very small (if he was ever to become a good laner). This means (theoratically) that he can be allowed to be a solid laner

his passive is related to the Seal Sister though, the way he Awakens his stances is strongly indicated to be the blessing she granted him after that shitty ass meal he ate

I love your editing man. Literally the first 1:30 minutes It felt like an entire video went by with funny editing and quips and I was delighted to see that I still had 17:14 minutes left.

I'd say the greatest advantage Riot had with the Udyr rework is a great starting point and clear direction. His lore was cannon, his visual idea was already present for everybody as a rugged, mid-aged brawler shaman, and a playstyle so iconic and usable, they didn't need much direction with that either (and don't go down on me with how difficult was this and that - I get that, but atleast they could skip some thinking regarding what his abilities should be). But next - I fear what they will do with Skarner who has absolutely nothing going on.

Nicky showing Ronnie Coleman in his montage of powerlifters right after saying that bodybuilders don't reach the same level of strength as powerlifting is one of many reasons why Ronnie remains the king.

This one is your best video so far, your growth with timing, editing, delivering and confidence has really improved since the time you had 10 k subscribers. Nice

As an Udyr main... I've been nodding my head 90% of the time, you've said it all. Well done man, well done.

Thats one hell of good video. Thanks for love for traditional skins!

”bodybuilders are strong, just not as strong as-” *shows ronnie coleman, one of, if not the goat of bodybuilding*

Really enjoying the editing and script for this one

Very well edited and presented video. It's my first time on your channel and won't be my last. Well done and thank you NickyBoi

16:20 oh my god nicky, you really hit me in the feels with this, I remember this show going on my grand parent’s Tv 15 fucking years ago or something

(AD) udyr is still kinda playable, I personally play him on lane and found some nice ways to survive and win trades so (AD) udyr its hidden away in white text, the (W) gives lifesteal and the awakened one a ridiculous amount. People seem to ignore this part of his kit a bit. His (Q) on itself is not a big burst of damage early but you can get more damage out of it than you think. You can play arround this (W) lifesteal strength and make his q pretty scary. (see more text below) For the current AD udyr i'm still experimenting: I go 2x Vampiric Scepter -> boots -> Deathdance This may seem a little ridiculous but it works pretty well, you can trade pretty wel and even longer fights work good. Also when you get poked wel all this lifesteal from his (W) keep you full hp while farming. So all the items I use, stil haven figured out the rest of the order from the point you read above. DeathDance Boots Imortal Shield Bow / Goredrinker Spirit Visage / Force Of Nature / Maw Of Malmortius / Titanic Hydra Manamune Blade Of The Ruined King Maybe this is something idk see it for yourself, I personally like it.(AD) udyr is still kinda playable, I personally play him on lane and found some nice ways to survive and win trades so (AD) udyr its hidden away in white text, the (W) gives lifesteal and the awakened one a ridiculous amount. People seem to ignore this part of his kit a bit. His (Q) on itself is not a big burst of damage early but you can get more damage out of it than you think. You can play arround this (W) lifesteal strength and see more text below make his q pretty scary. For the current AD udyr i'm still experimenting: I go 2x Vampiric Scepter -> boots -> Deathdance This may seem a little ridiculous but it works pretty well, you can trade pretty wel and even longer fights work good. Also when you get poked wel all this lifesteal from his (W) keep you full hp while farming. So all the items I use, stil haven figured out the rest of the order from the point you read above. DeathDance Boots Imortal Shield Bow / Goredrinker Spirit Visage / Force Of Nature / Maw Of Malmortius / Titanic Hydra Manamune Blade Of The Ruined King Maybe this is something idk see it for yourself, I personally like it.

Absolutely loved hearing pats thoughts on how the new "stances" work

Loved the Mundo one, loved this one. Keep it up!

18:20 "either next september when the skarner rework will probably release" riot: yeah... about that...

I love these videos thank you Nicky

Im glad u mentioned about Udyr's body. I also made video about it just after his trailer was released becuz I hate it when so much ppl think he's fat

Man love your editing as much as the rework

One thing they could do to fix the issue with his "stances" not actually being stances is to re-use the old udyr's Bear cooldown mechanic. Old Udyr (Although new Udyr's Ram stance might also do this) use to have a per-champion internal cooldown on his stun. He could stun any number of times he wanted, up to the number of champions on the enemy team he could hit, but no one person could get stunned more than once every several seconds. I think they should do something like this with ALL of his abilities. Alter his 2-hit passive to instead active his current stance's on-hit effect whenever he attacks a champion, up to *once* per champion globally. That is to say, not once per stance per champion, but once *per champion* period. Because if you just have each stance's effect be its own separate cooldown, you loop right back around to the same core problem with the false stance design: There is no actual choice being made. The only question you have to consider is whether or not you've gotten your current stance's value or not. if you have, you switch, if not, get it fool! This is true with New Udyr, and would remain true with this suggested change if his stance's on-hit cooldowns were independant. Instead, make them more powerful, and make the cooldown very short. Probably 2 seconds, maybe 3. Alternatively, make it auto-attack based, such that its every Xth auto against the same champion. I prefer the cooldown being in raw seconds, however, because it keeps it consistent throughout the game and encourages him to share the love instead of focusing down a single target- thereby maintaining the push in the Bruiser/Tank direction. Could have each attack lower the cooldown by a tiny bit, but not a whole lot, to ensure that a raw AD assassin setup is still competitive. This way, the question an Udyr player must ask themselves is not "Have I got my two attacks with this stance over with so I can switch to a new one for more value?" but rather "Which Stance would be optimal *right now*?". The difference is sort of subtle, but the key is that with the first question, the answer is NEVER "My current stance." Because you can't get value out of a stance you're already in unless you're using the Awakening effect, which is very much its own little thing and not particularly attached to the decision (Which, by the way, is a good mechanic which also asks the latter question. Again because it's a single "shared" cooldown between all its possible effects). With the second question, the answer CAN just be "My current stance". And due to the way the champion works, it'll never *always* be the right decision. Sometimes you'll need waveclear, sometimes you need healing and to not die, sometimes you need to run away, sometimes you need just that little bit more single-target DPS to take down an objective or, well, a single target. Forcing an Udyr player to make that decision every few seconds is exactly what old Udyr did, and Old udyr did occasionally sit in a stance for several seconds just because its passive effect was more valuable than the switch at that particular moment. But current udyr doesn't have that. He has no passive effects. In a weird way, Udyr who was THE champion all about switching between passive effects with a bit of a boost between swaps, became a champion who *literally has no passive effects*. EVERYTHING he does requires pushing a button, even his "passive".

The edits are so funny man, props! Lost my shit at the ww scene.

I now HEAVILY regret disenchanting my Spirit-Guard Udyr skin shard 2 months ago

Honestly, after that lore segment, I'm convinced that Nicky can edit/narrate something like a nature documentary and I'd still be entertained the whole time.

Im so glad that spiritguard keeps the old stances, i was missing turtl, i love turtle.!!!!!!!!!

Seliana's theme for udyr is so fitting, nice one NickyBoi

its great, only thing i wish was different was the ram stance being elbows down fist up to mirror the horns

Incredible editing

The just for laugh ending got my canadian laugh real good

OMG the definitely not Udyr jump scare XD I can totally feel the torment behind those beady of his

To be exact : Spirit Guard Udyr is the representation of Udyr if he stayed in Ionia to train with Lee, like if he never came back to Freljord and mastered the spirits of Ionia instead

I really enjoyed the editing

Amazing! Well done!

Thanls for the monster hunter theme in the back. Very nice

If each stance at least had a STAT increase to make it feel different like attack speed, Omni vamp, move speed, and attack range I would be content, also to give him a seal sister passive just add after 3 hits, regain mana, speaking of 3 hits, boosts the ability effect from 2 to 3 because it further increases his first passive decrease while also helping the stance portion I just talked about have more value if you decrease your passive more with even one stance. I made a Reddit post about this but linking it would be kinda shitty, since it’d be riding off a successful RU-vidr…

I dind´t know about this series, I LOVE THIS SERIES

damn nicky busting out another banger. missed your content. (dont tell sunny but some days i just watch her for you lol) as for udyr i think pats right about abilities vs stances but i think it's pretty good. i never particularly was fond of old udyr but mostly i just never had a great game as him. i haven't had time to try newdyr out tho so im looking forward to it

I hear that Dr Crankcase theme Nicky, you sir are a man of culture

Thank you for talking about the death of stances. As an udyr main it felt weird seeing everyone ignore it.

i really do hope riot swaps the colors on tiger and bear for spirit guard udyr

i pulled spirit fuard udyr from a level up capsule 3 years ago. since then ive always wanted to play udyr but he was so jank. glad to see him become chad

I think it lacks the "stance" thing to me, not that before you remained a lot in a stance, but now, you HAVE to change, I used to go ad tiger and use Q and proc the tiger 3 hit passive as much as I could before changing, now that doesn't exists anymore, kinda lame, but I hope he is fun to play

18:20 "next september" yeeeeaaaaah about that...

the thumbnail looks awsome ngl. Want this as a screen saver

As a thicc boy enjoyer I think this new Udyr is definetly one I am excited to see come to the rift. I like how they made his dragon oracle skin look so fantastic too, with the R form having winter wyvern wings! It is so cool!!! Also rip Udyr's one old joke line: IF PETA ASKS THIS FUR IS FAKE!

Finally it came out and it was worth the wait

This is literally perfect

The absolute best part of this rework is that spamming ctrl+4 make him do the drip pose

lmao the jokes in this are so funny. subbed

6:19 fun fact grizzly (screaming guy) is from my Hometown kavala (Greece) met him in the cinema once

personally, even though i could never get into old udyr's gameplay because of the clunkiness and i much preffer how smooth the new one feels, i agree that there should be something that happens in a stance beyond 2 empowered aa, maybe voli stance could give you a attack spee buff as long as you're in it, boar stance could give you half the on-hit healing and life steal it gives on the first 2 hits, ornn stance could give you additional movement speed as long as you're in it, anivia stance could give you a mini nashor's while you're in it however personally i don't think anivia an ornn stance need that much additional stuff as voli and boar, who do literally nothing after 2 aa another idea that would probably be easier to implement is that while you are in a stance, besides the first 2 aa, your aa slightly cut the cooldown for the stance you are in, so if you continue being in a stance after the main effect run out, you can stay in it to get it back quicker, that in itself would be a massive buff to voli stance, which feels the most underwhelming rn, as the bonus attack speed it gives you would mean you could get the stance back faster than any other

9:00 Man absorbed 5 Katerinas into that Dad bod hot damn

The fact that the stances don't have permanent "every 3 auto attacks" passives doesn't really bother me, since I play him in the jungle and there you're already swapping through your stances constantly. Although, I feel like only 2 auto attacks is far too few, and something like 3 or 4 would make the stances last long enough to actually feel like stances, while still heavily encouraging you to not linger on one for an entire fight.

I see the dunkey inspiration, good video

Man I quote the "do you LOVE it?" line daily so happy it's back

06:10 You know, here in Brazil we have a expression called Fordo, resuming: Its someone thats so strong that have goes fat of muscles

The xavier renegade angel reference was a nice touch 😂

Honestly I think the udyr rework is as good as it could be. Added more depth to actually playing him while keeping his feel the same and making him look amazing.

That visuals bit alone made me want to buy udyr and the dragon skin for him

I lost it at the seal sister bit 😂

I love the rework, but like, it literally took riot a year and a half Not like it's a bad thing, they really polished him to near perfection, but I actually dread that we will see Skarners rework in 2025

Maybe if they make udyr stances like kha's evolution where we can chose which stance to be in perma awakened state. It can even connect to the seal sister lore where she blessed udyr, like we chose which stance to "bless".

Man, this guy actually has all of my thoughts about the rework, amazing how similar they all are. I also wish they add LoR udyr skin, mainly because of the pelt, they can make it change based on the stance just like old udyr

Ayo I can hear Garcello's music on the background, nc taste bro :D

I've played a lot of udyr, and I freaking love the rework. He's kinda the same, but now you actually have to think about how you play him. You get a decision on what to awaken, and swapping stance to lower the cd on awaken is a nice thing. I do miss the every 3rd attack on phoenix though.

Just so you know, if you go full ad on Udyr you can potentially do upwards of 50% max health damage in bear stance then awaken it to refresh the effects on top of the chain lightning. 100% max health damage

Add to his pass, blessing of seal Sister, add old 3rd hit effects after 1st 2, an he can keep gaining lvs pass 18, at lv20 they lower from 3 to 2.

12:07 I am subscribing just for that Xavier renegade angel reference

i like the udyr rework because it brings new " skill expression " to the guy that used to only walk at you and auto attack but still his back looks wierd

I really feel the title hits home on this one.

that ultimate skin compared to the old one is a huge step up

"Next september when Skarner rework will probably release" Oh this words... Aged like milk

This is a perfect video for the rework honestly,nobody can top this. P.S: I lost my shit when you added the fnaf 2 ambience noise when it was old Udyr :D

So I've discussed this with a lot of other Udyr mains and this is pretty much what we agree should happen to save the rework and actually make it feel like Udyr and not just a new champ with no dashes (because that's honestly how he feels to me now). 1) Q should go back to being the DoT or they should simply make the lightning not bounce. Q should be the tool you use if you decide you want to 1v1 people and splitpush all game, Phoenix should be what you go if you decide you want to be teamfighting that game. The weird mix of AoE that Q has (not to mention it honestly doesn't do a whole lot of damage) turns it into this weird hybrid of 1v1 and teamfight but it ends up not being particularly good at either. Old Q was more or less perfect. 2) E feels a lot slower, like a straight up downgrade, and only really feels any decent on Awaken. Udyr's whole thing is that he's a speed demon and is really obnoxious to chase around because he's faster than everyone. Now he's lost a lot of that (and that's pretty much his identity so it feels like losing the champ) and his weaknesses of being kited feel even more exploitable (I thought reworks were supposed to help champs not make them worse?). Combo this with the fact that they removed the movement speed from Monkey's Agility and he's just not the same. Which btw, they should add back. Pretty much everyone can agree there was no reason to remove it. 3) They removed his whole thing of being able to build every item because now everything scales AP and the one thing that doesn't is honestly the worst part of his kit. I'm sorry but Q is just way worse than the new R in almost every way. 4) So many of his abilities actually took hits randomly. His E stuns for less long and gives less speed, his Q does way less damage and in general he just feels like he does way less damage. The Awakened abilities are definitely cool and strong tools for him but I don't think they're worth making the rest of him way worse. The only thing that feels like a strict upgrade is the new R, and it'll be really sad to see if Udyr gets stuck on one build and one ability because riot made everything else about him worse (and that's what it's looking like so far). Adding the fact that there's no more Monkey's Agility and it starts to feel like the old Udyr was a better Udyr than the new one. 5) The thing about the stances not really being stances anymore and just being abilities also really bothers me. Especially for laning. Mana used to not be such a big issue but you have to spam stances a lot more now and it gets bad even for jungle in a lot of scenarios. 6) *Why does Spirit Guard Udyr's bear have...tusks ??* No like actually what are those and why does it have them? Please remove those, it's unnatural and I don't think anyone likes them. Overall it was a great *idea* but the gameplay is just not there. Almost everything needs tweaking and they really killed his identity of being the "speed demon" of league of legends and the Udyr fantasy of running around the map farming everything you see at mach speed. His weakness of getting kited is even worse than before and he's not disruptive enough to be a tank like Amumu or Ornn (champs that can CC entire teams and never die). He just kind of...exists at you. But these are definitely fixable issues. We just need Riot to actually listen and care. Also his gamer neck is so extreme it hurts to look at and he looks really goofy when he stuns you with E.

the thing with spirit guard is that it was such an insane improvement on old base udyr that it felt worth the price. Now its just a pretty good skin for udyr, not much more. It feels worse even though technically, it got better

tb honest I feel like they could fix the stance problem by just giving them an extra effect, like cryo slows, voli has ramping attack speed, boar just keeps the heal but it lower and the shield is higher, and ornn just give him more tank after the effects up just to give him a better engage. and the although this would be harder to nerf/buff without it being too weak or too strong I feel it would give him more play styles like you said you were said to see to go like hybrid tank with lots of cc, ap brawler or a straight ad brawler cus volis ramping attack speed (the only reason I feel like ramping attack speed is good is the swaping of stances between iron boar, ornn and voli if its ad).

loved the Monster Hunter Music background. I also love that game

My biggest problem is the back, it's so empty and lacking in detail which is especially a problem when you see the back most of the time. I think some muscle definition on the back would go a long way, I like the strongman vibe they are going for but the muscles really lack shading or definition making his model seem a lot flatter than it should

Your videos go hard

Sir ronnie Coleman quite literally is one of the most accomplish body builders of his time and u put him with the strong me

0:41 still so funny lmao. Hagrid Udyr

bear stance for the new ultimate skin is brown/orange because its a mother bear based off a brown bear which is easier to show then blue brown bear to show the difference to the personality of a brown bear and a polar bear

I haven't played him yet but there is one thing, I really wish for. I hope that Udyr can still be played in every way he used to be played. Like Nicky already said, I love both, AD and AP Udyr. But after seeing a lot of Udyr Gameplay, most of the time people played him as an AP/Tank. This is not bad, in fact, I liked it. Nonetheless I hope his AD/Lethality Build is still a valuable alternative. Thank you again Nicky, for another great and entertaining video. And for the hard work you have put in it.