Zaahen is the newest Darkin champion arriving on Summoner’s Rift. While his kit includes a full revive, League of Legends developers insist it won’t repeat the problems that turned old Aatrox into a balance nightmare, which led to his eventual rework.
The Unsundered’s passive, Cultivation of War, gives Zaahen a unique mix of scaling and survivability. Each attack or ability he lands on enemy champions builds Determination, which grants bonus attack damage with every stack. Once fully charged, Zaahen enters an empowered state that increases his damage even further.
This state also allows him to revive upon death, a detail that immediately sparked flashbacks to pre-rework Aatrox among longtime League players. While Aatrox’s revive was notoriously difficult to balance, Riot argues that Zaahen’s requirement to hit enemy champions before entering his revive state is a key difference that sets him apart.
“Zaahen’s revive has a few conditions that we feel will mitigate some of the problems that other revives have had historically. The revive requiring you to have hit enemy champions a number of times is the most significant one,” Blake “Squad5” Smith, League’s Lead Champion Designer, said in a Reddit AMA.
Furthermore, revive mechanics have often caused problems by making tower dives too safe, especially when a champion becomes untargetable and drops aggro automatically. Zaahen’s revive is less reliable because opponents can interrupt the conditions needed to trigger it. He also cannot move or reposition while reviving, and the longer animation gives enemies a clear opportunity to reset the fight or disengage completely.
While the developer has made revive mechanics work in the past with champions like Anivia and Renata Glasc, those abilities came with strict limitations that helped keep them in check. With this counterplay to Zaahen’s revive, the developer feels that it should be enough to keep him in check, and they have enough ways to balance the revive if it ever goes out of hand.
During Worlds 2025, Faker said, “Having a revive means the champion is a little weak.” Riot agreed with the general idea that powerful mechanics need to be paid for somewhere else in the kit. They explained that Zaahen’s design reflects this tradeoff, which is why his revive now has a 200-second cooldown.
They also shared an insight that the revive could trigger once per fight with no cooldown at all during early development. However, they eventually decided that adding one would give the team room to make the mechanic stronger without letting it overwhelm the rest of his kit.
Being the 172nd champion, players also wondered whether Riot is running out of ideas. But according to the developers, there is no fatigue on the design side, and champion designers remain excited to create new characters with plenty of concepts still on the table. They acknowledge that with such a large roster, it can be harder to find spaces that feel fresh while still being healthy for the game, and sometimes that means taking risks that do not always pay off.
Even so, their priority is ensuring each champion feels distinct, and sharing a few similarities with existing kits does not prevent a new champion from standing out on the roster. Zaahen is currently out on the live servers with the recent LoL Patch 25.23, allowing players to try him in the top lane and adding another Darkin champion to their collection.
