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League of Legends: Spirit Guard Udyr Preview – StrategyZero
Jun 272013
 
Spirit Guard Udyr in Bear Stance
Spirit Guard Udyr

The second ultimate skin is finally coming to the League of Legends. Embracing his primal spirits and becoming one with them Spirit Guard Udyr appears. This ultimate skin offers a mystical monk with the power to physically manifest the will of animal spirits. If you want to know more, keep reading.

Characteristics

Spirit Guard Udyr provides a new model that nicely represents a classic martial artist monk with supernatural powers. The base stances modify the base model with new arms according to the spirit chosen. When the maximum rank of a stance is reached the model is further modified altering Udyr’s human features, body and head, with animalistic traits. In essence, the base monk model is modified to reveal the features and advancement of each stance. Thus, it reveals how you have spent your skill points.

New particles and animations are also integrated to each stance as well as sounds. In the case of sounds that also includes an extensive new voice-over with new callouts when facing certain champions in a specific stance. Additionally, there are callouts when defeating minions, neutral monsters, the Dragon and Baron Nashor in Summoner’s Rift. Whether other maps benefit from this is not yet known.

Spirit Guard Udyr Tiger Stance Icon and Banner
Spirit Guard Udyr Turtle Stance Icon and Banner
Spirit Guard Udyr Bear Stance Icon and Banner
Spirit Guard Udyr PhoenixStance Icon and Banner

Finally, as an ultimate skin Spirit Guard Udyr offers extra icons and banners. The skin incorporates a set of four icons with associated banners that correspond to each of Udyr stances. You choose which icon you like and that alters the banner on your Summoner Profile.

Pricing

Spirit Guard Udyr will be available in three ways. For four days after release there will be a promotional sale and bundle, the latter includes the skin and champion, at 1950 RP and 2295 RP respectively. The bundle charges 345 RP for Udyr whereas his normal price is 585 RP and his price on sale is 292 RP. When the promotional sale ends the skin will be priced at the usual 3250 RP and no bundle will be available.

Conclusion

As far as features go, Spirit Guard Udyr offers quite a lot. The model looks good while its modifications are clear, the particles are attractive and the sounds functional. The new voice-over makes Udyr a rather chatty monk but it’s also part of its identity. Maybe one would’ve expected deeper transformations that place Udyr closer to the aesthetic of each animal spirit. However, that could’ve had an overlap with Primal Udyr’s concept; even if each skin has its own particular style.

One thing is to be noted: at 1950 RP Spirit Guard Udyr seems like a very good choice as it offers more than a legendary skin and the price is just 100 RP away from one. At 3250 RP it may be too much of an expense so if you are interested in Spirit Guard Udyr, better make up your mind in the first four days after release.

What do you think of Spirit Guard Udyr?

  10 Responses to “League of Legends: Spirit Guard Udyr Preview”

  1. Will buy during sale.
    Can’t resist. Udyr is one of my all time favorite tops and jungles and this skin bumps him up even more on my favorites list. Did NOT see this coming though. I mean, who could predict that UDYR, of all champions, would be the next in line to receive an ultimate skin.

    • There’s surely been hints, mainly statements that making a skin for Udyr is like making four skins. Therefore, due to the complexity, it would be better to go all out and do something big like a legendary or ultimate skin.

      We agree that the skin reveals a new dimension or facet of Udyr. Let’s see how good it really is once we finally get to play with it.

  2. Actually it has already been revealed that he has a special interaction for killing Vilemaw 🙂
    I think that this is an odd skin to review, because simply explaining the features doesn’t do it justice. I highly recommend anyone with a PBE account to actually try out the skin, because it feels like a whole new level of game interaction. I think that while it might not be completely deserving of the ultimate price tag, it certainly is easy more than PFE. Hopefully the recent changes to PFE (the picture showing up on the bottom left) show that Riot is willing to update the ultimate skins to give them the highest possible quality.

    • Ultimate skins are certainly difficult to assess as the extent and quantity of changes add up and modify the experience of playing with a champion. We’ll be cautious about the rating as ultimate skins have quite a high price so the skin has to be worth a lot more than a legendary; the nearest comparison possible.

      It’s interesting to know that Pulsefire Ezreal received a new portrait in-game. To know that ultimate skins, due to their status, are worth being constantly improved surely adds to their value. However, fixes for several bugs in PFE took quite a while to come. Hopefully, Spirit Guard Udyr won’t have to suffer from the same ailments.

  3. in case people think Spirit Guard Udyr should have transformed him into the animals, RiotMindBullets commented on this situation here: http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?p=39194141#39194141

    • Indeed, it’s a good point against that idea. Still, one is left with the feeling that Spirit Guard Udyr could’ve embraced the communion between monk and animal spirit in a more explicit way. Specifically, his aesthetic could’ve reflected more the physique of each animal. That could generated a competition with Primal Udyr but with a distinct and well established style it could’ve had an identity of its own.

  4. Its out and I cant wait to see your review.

  5. PS.

    If you can, I think it deserves a brief comparison to not only Primal Udyr but also to Pulsefire Ezrael.

    Primal Udyr is just so good that I cannot see any reason why someone would pay 3250 rp for Spirit Guard Udyr vs Primal Udyr. But on sale, Spirit Guard Udyr might be a good value.

    Is SG Udyr better than PF Ezrael. Zero will let us know.

    • On sale, Spirit Guard Udyr is just above a legendary skin in price but offers more so it’s recommended to get it while the sale lasts. In general, we could say that ultimate skins are better purchased at the initial sale.

      Primal Udyr retains its distinct and appealing aesthetic despite being simpler. Thus, even if Spirit Guard Udyr is striking and recommended on sale it doesn’t make Primal obsolete at all. Ultimately, they have different aims and both are good at what they do; Primal just has a more reasonable price.

      Pulsefire Ezreal seems to be just as good as Spirit Guard Udyr. It can be said that the former is more elaborate in terms of model work while the latter has more animations. Still, overall they are worth the ultimate label yet quite expensive. On sale, both are worth getting if you like the champion but at 3250 RP they are reserved only for the most dedicated fans or collectors.

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