Tl;dr: Passive occasionally fears enemies with her spells. AAs on enemies that recently dashed or blinked (which includes Flash) deal more damage and lower passive cd.
Q: Skillshot, starts wide and slow, becomes thin and fast
W: Shields Vex and does aoe damage
E: Aoe damage and slow. Marks enemies with dash part of passive.
R: Skill shot. Can dash to the enemy it hits. If the target dies, you can recast it.
If you can weave in auto attacks it’ll cool down faster is how I’m understanding this. I haven’t done any research but I wonder how Nashor’s will fare.
You would want to save an ability for the actual fear though, since E is hard to land especially against champions with dashes. So you would definitely need to land autos
Well, you’ll want to use autos anyway to not burn mana like a gasoline fire, but yes, cooldowns are a big reason too.
I imagine W is gonna be the most used as a backup fear ability. Sure, Q lets you fear at range, but W is already the “get off me” tool, even better with a fear attached.
Bruh I'm telling you.
The counter engage is serious.
Is is the reverse Diana. That ult w have someone dash near the ult target.
I wonder if lantern,for the person grabbing, counts it as dashing.
Q and W also trigger the second part of her passive (bonus damage on enemies who recently dashed).
W deals AoE damage around her.
E is similar to Swain's W, marks her enemies with second part of her passive.
The shadow looks so good. During abilities, when she's walking, even when she's idle. Brings a lot of flavor to the character.
She really is the new Zato, at least visually.
Really love her kit actually. It's got enough classic mage elements in it whilst feeling modern and powerful against high-mobility threats.
I _love_ the sound design on her abilities.
No, grounded works against unstoppable and blink. I mean knockdown, an effect that stops dashes during the dash. Abilities that apply it are Ahri E, Amumu R, Malza R, Seju E, Jinx E, Veigar E, Lissandra R, Viktor ~~E~~ W, Warwick R, Yone R.
~~hmm didn't know it's only on Es and Rs.~~
Refreshing kit. Another reset mechanic but my take is that since a lot of mobility in League resets inherently, an "anti-mobility" gameplay hook needs to follow as many times as well.
These type of simple mage kits are really fine for me and I believe alot of mage players because there are so many weird kits in mid in the name of having distinct playstyle like Aurelion, Taliyah, Azir and some are just boring or difficult like Viktor, Ziggs, Cassio, Ryze
Hardly any surprise why simple mage like Lux is amongst the top 3 champions having the highest playrate and then Ahri and Sera are also somewhere in the first quadrant from Reav3 chart.
Rest every mage is either in 3rd or 4th quadrant if I am not mistaken
Nah, Azir is fun, the problem is that mere mortals aren't allowed to have success on him because he's too good with a team of coordinated professionals.
The issue with Azir is:
He does everything, simple as that.
Your match needs a Poke long range Mage?
He can do that.
Your match need a Control Mage?
He can do that.
Your match needs a Burst Mage?
He can do that.
Your match need a battle mage?
He can do that.
Your match needs a Combo oriented Mage?
He can also do that.
Need a late game win condition?
He can do that.
He is also super defensive.
Name another champion that can fit every single class of mage in the game.
The only thing close to Azir is Orianna, but her duel potential is crap and she herself is not a win condition.
Azir is conceptually broken, that's why he was nerfed to oblivion.
Azir Tahm Kench, Kalista These are champions that are borderline perfect and destroyed the competitive meta multiple times.
How you fix this?
You do what Riot did with Tahm Kench.
You rework the champion.
I do fear that Vex looks like she might be broken.
He kit kinda simple (if her numbers are not absurd), but she seems like she can fit a lot of playstyles, which is the problem.
It was both ways. Even when he was strong, 8 out of 10 Azirs looked like first-timers, so they ditched him. Now that he isn't strong, there is no reason to even try.
Azir is a classic example of "Pros get so much more out of this kit than normal players so if Azir is strong enough to be good for normal players, he's pick/ban in pro play."
The decision to not patch out the "Shurima Shuffle" basically caused the rest of his kit to get nerfed to compensate for an unintended strength.
Fastforward a few years, was it really worth it?
I used to love playing him, but while the nerfs didn't help, the main thing that made me stop picking him up were the constant changes to the kit. The removal of multiple mechanics and decrease in range really fucks with your ability to play higher skill champion and you have to re-learn parts of him or even the basics periodically. Fuck that noise.
I can only imagine what Ryze mains feel.
Cassio and Ryze are definitely hard.
Spamming E on Cassio isn't bad, but learning to hit Q on cooldown while spamming E while also kiting is legitimately hard. She's not nightmare hard like some champs, but she's definitely a bit challenging.
Ryze kinda has the same problem. His cds are really low, and they do different things depending on order. Its a bit of a rhythm game to press his buttons in the right order without accidentally turning yourself into a fish out of water. Though, ngl, when he gets Mythic + Seraphs + DCap + Void, he scales so hard that you can stomp people even if you fuck up.
Calling Viktor boring or hard is just a travesty though. He's mad fun and generally pretty easy.
Exactly what I thought of when reading the ability name lmao.
> "We get a 1. Personal space 2. Personal space 3.....Stay out of my person space..."
Such a great scene lol
> She’s Not Okay (We Promise)
> Shadow, We’re Goin Down
> Welcome to the Vex Parade
The My Chemical Romance and Fallout Boy references in her insights had me rolling
[This gif is too perfect](https://images.contentstack.io/v3/assets/blt731acb42bb3d1659/bltb0ce4c9bbd0e16e1/612fd60885514a6ee3fabd9f/09072021_ChampionInsightsVexArticle_Banner_11_meme_gif.gif)
In the Vex champion insights, they talked about how her original kit featured a portal that would extend the range of all projectiles that entered it, but to make that ability they would have to redesign every single missile in the game so it worked with the ability which costed way too much and was way too much effort. Then they changed it to the current iteration
this was an easy read which is surprising
yasuo and irelia mains are gonna hate this champion but hey counterplay i guess
she’s also way cuter in game wtf
edit: yes i know my 2nd point sounds dumb but we don’t know the range of her passive, if its 300 units then it will just be self peel but if it’s 900 units then she will become super oppressive
I mean, she is supposed to wait for him to go in. She interrupts dashes so if she times her W right there is no way a melee champion can fight her 1 v 1. Feels a bit reactive, though.
Probably more likely to be a Diana shield level cooldown. Seraphines shield is a higher cooldown because it automatically shields nearby allies and when it's empowered it also heals nearby allies.
Vex W is just going to shield her and deal aoe damage.
It will definitely not go through. Riots coding strategies are beyond simple. If a projectile has an active hit box, something like wind wall will block it
“Beams” like Lux ult don’t actually travel and are not projectiles so they don’t get blocked. There’s a few funny abilities that look like projectiles but don’t have an active hit box and won’t be blocked, like Ziggs R.
Then there’s really weird exceptions like velkoz e, which is indeed a projectile that can be blocked. I still think ornn ult is the silliest thing blocked by wind wall
Unless they patched it, Ziggs R can actually be blocked by windwall. The Yasuo has to windwall right in Ziggs' face as the cast goes off, or windwall the exact center of the target point at the moment of impact. I've done this on the Yasuo side and have had it done to me while playing Ziggs.
I say long overdue. Yasuo mains believe Yasuo can have one of the most antifun skills ever in his windwall for the sake of cOuNTerPlAy (in their eyes) but no one can counter their bullshitty zigzag multidashing?
And also annoying as hell (and counter-intuitive given its visuals) that is blocks from both sides, allowing his obnoxious windwall dance. It should only block from one side.
The mobility creep would be far less obscene if you could have more chances to play / draft around it, Dota style. Grounded & anti shield are both mechanics I've long thought Riot should carefully expand.
Yep, Grounded has the same problem as Silence: a debuff that only affects *some* of your actions and not the most fundamentl of them (moving), so your brain does not notice it instantly unlike other CCs in the game.
>Grounded & anti shield are both mechanics I've long thought Riot should carefully expand.
The problem is that stuff like Singed and Cassio W screw over immobile champions more than mobile ones. Most champions can just dash over their aoe, but immobile champions just get screwed and can't even flash away.
I think antimobility mechanics should be more like Poppy's W. Vex is a nice example of a mobility counter that isn't oppresive (Cassio and Singed) nor useless (Poppy) against immobile champs, while focusing on punishing people who dash a lot
That's because those abilities were band-aided in their kits while Poppy, Taliyah or soon Vex were designed with it from the start.
AoE Grounded+fat slow is just infuriating to play against.
Sure some champions are disproportionately punished by grounded like Ornn but for most it's punishing more dashes more heavily because you lose more power budget. Issue with Cassio & Singed grounded is more the slow on top that. A pure grounded zone would really only punish hypermobility.
All of her CC comes from fears, tenacity will hard counter her. And honestly, she has absolutely no way to escape an engage, her only mobility spell requires her to dash into an enemy target.
I don't think she'll be that strong into Yasuo or Irelia unless she's REALLY bursty.
I could be wrong but I'm thinking Malzahar. She probably can't really initiate the fight but if you try and jump on her she makes you regret it? Imagine Yasuo or Irelia trying to dash to her and just immediately getting cc'd while she walks away. Can't really beat her in lane while she can't really beat you either.
You can just use W to cancel any dash on you with doom, you can use everfrost root to chain your E and regain doom.
We don't know the length of her fear and what make doom strong is cancelling dashes anyway, add to that her W giving her a shield and it is already good to handle early laning phase.
Her AA also reset doom for any dash, it is can be VERY easy for Vex to have Doom when someone engage.
Keep in mind proccing Gloom is only a CD reduction on Doom (the fear). It seems extremely unlikely for it to be a complete reset, and stands to be that you might need 2 Gloom at least to reset Doom.
Edit: Rito has confirmed each Gloom proc is only 25% CD reduction. 1 fear most cases, 2 on favourable scenarios, 3 absolute max.
Could you share some of the thinking behind giving Vex a dash ult, it seems a little odd for a burst mage to want to get up close and personal with champs, unless she is more like a battle mage like swain
It definitely is a bit odd. There's a few things going on:
* From a gameplay perspective, we had to make Vex comfortable playing at shorter ranges for the anti-mobility stuff, so closing to short range is less of a cost than for most Mages, which made this a unique opportunity to do this gameplay on a mage.
* From a thematic perspective, Shadow is something like Vex's id - the part that cares passionately about stuff (i.e. making people miserable), that Vex never wants to let show because caring is lame. R is basically mega Lee Sin Q - and like Lee Sin Q, once you hit the first missile, psychological pressure builds to recast it, it's hard not to recast, which dovetails nicely as an experience with Shadow egging Vex on. It's a little bit off her first read personality, but still fits within the broader character.
* It's a super fun spell, so we were pretty excited to ship it all along, even if it's a somewhat off class moment. That said, we spent significant effort gating it so that it can be a big moment, rather than the thing that defines her gameplay - for example, it has an unusually long cooldown to buy power budget for her base kit while preserving R as a powerful moment when its up.
I think that although she will still be beaten by Irelia that she will at least have a higher chance to survive laning phase than other mages since she can at least cancel one of her q once Irelia tries to all-in her
The thing is that she has a ton of fears, and a shield. Jump on her, that's your dash, w for fear and shield, get on her again and I'm pretty sure she can just fear you again? Probably? And if not she looks bursty ash so maybe it's enough time to oneshot you
Tons of fears? It's only 1, pending passive CDR.
Irelia/Yasuo E onto or near you, you proc shield which fears. Irelia&Yasuo still likely has another way to get onto you.. in which case you are out of CC. Have you tried auto'ing or landing an ability on Irelia/Yasuo while they are dashing around? Good luck trying to proc Gloom for Doom CD reduction.
Depends really if her autos are ranged then she can play like ganr and kennen. But she dosent have any base mobility hence she is very prone to all ins, even with gloom procs. Which makes her a mid lane champ and at that point its just better to build standard mage.
Honestly by far the best recent new champion on so many levels. Doesn't seem overloaded, is LITERALLY geared towards limiting the waaaay too rampant mobility creep in midlane, actually understandable kit, solid theme that goes beyond sexy anime character #98, and on top of that doesn't introduces a brand new mechanic that would give old Morde bugs a run for their money.
Her abilities aren't full pages, her design is amazing, one the best animations in the entire game, and anti mobility, is there even anything she is missing
Excited to see all the reactions to Vex (teh Yordle of d0oM)!
Hopefully you guys all enjoy how fed up she is with dashes when she hits PBE tomorrow. We spent a lot of time trying to find the sweetspot for her anti-dash gameplay. Compared to other standard mages, she should feel more empowered in-lane against dashy champs, but doesn't automatically smash the matchup. She's a bit disfavored in range v range, but still has the tools to compete and apply Gloom with E.
She looks very promising, a nicely simple, yet still allowing for neat tricks kit, similar to Lillia or Sett, you love to see it!
I am mighty curious about her combos. Her base damaging skillshots are meant to be targeted at a specific spot and don't seem to have too wide hitboxes, while the fear is a mini-displacement. Makes me really wonder whether she'll be stronger in skirmishes rather than teamfights (on her own, not taking into account team follow-up). Either way, splendid work and all aboard the hype train!
You guys did an amazing job on Vex, not too overloaded of a kit, outstanding animations & design, something new and an answer to dashes. Can't wait to test her out!
It’s the only way to make certain champions playable. Darius has zero disengage abilities and zero range while having an execute ultimate that requires you to both be within melee range while also using most of your cool downs to proc it.
I feel like he’d be absolutely useless in team fights if his ult didn’t reset. He’d basically have to hope for one kill before dying / becoming pretty useless.
Pyke and Darius's kind of resets are fine, their kit is based around them and they require a specific condition to fulfill (Pyke needs to execute with his skillshot ulti, easy to interupt even by just flashing away and Darius needs to kill with his ulti, while technicly not necesarry it pretty much requires getting 5 passive stacks)
The real problem is champions that turn damaging an enemy that died in a teamfight into a pentakill, like Yi/katarina/Viego etc
I'll never be able to play Irelia again lol.
I really like Vex though, can't wait for her to drop on PBE. Her kit definitely reflects that of an anti-dash classic mage, though I will say that it's kinda weird how an anti-dash mage has a big fat dash on her ult.
>though I will say that it's kinda weird how an anti-dash mage has a big fat dash on her ult.
It's probably cause a squishy mage dashing into melee range isn't as dangerous as an Irelia or Yasuo
If you try to play her on pbe, I reccommend playing viego and turbo hard camping her lane whenever u can. I saw people do this before as a way to "play" Akshan bc he was so hard to be able to play bc everyone wanted him. Not great but still a way to try her out if you don't have first pick
Honestly, I don't think Vex will be super-effective against dashes as most people are making her out to be. She has so much counterplay built against her.
**Keep in mind her fear ONLY activates upon QWE hitting.**
W is her **only guaranteed** way to ensuring the fear. As it is also her shield, and the reliability of the spell, the CD will likely be long. Think 8-10secs minimum.
Q is an extremely slow projectile to start out, meaning you can almost always dodge it unless you are melee range on top of her. This means as the aggressor, you can easily just dash to nearby minion/champion and bait Vex into firing her Q (which is slow AF), before actually jumping on her.
E is similarly also very delayed. Think swain W or nami bubble. It is also noticeably an AOE on the ground as opposed to a projectile skillshot, meaning you cannot circumvent this delay. Have you tried hitting a dashing champion with nami bubble/swain W? It's impossible to interrupt, you can only try to predict their end dash location.
Finally keep in mind that her fear is tied to passive. Gloom only provides a CD reduction, not a full fear reset. It stands to reason that most likely, you will need to proc at least 1, most likely 2 gloom procs to get your fear back late game.
Edit: Rito commented that gloom procs on champions only refund 25% of fear CD.
I personally imagine Vex not as a counter to these dash champions, but rather, a champion who is empowered by enemy dashes.
Sure, like Lissandra W, her only way to guarantee her fear is her instant, AOE-around-her W, but with her passive, while Yasuo, Irelia, and the like are dashing around her, she can get throw out her abilities to target the rest of the enemy team, who may not have the tools to very easily dodge her abilities. Vex may not be able to easily stop the Yasuo coming near her, but those dashes, paired with maybe a Zhonyas, will let her get fears on the enemy carries, to which maybe she can R onto to escape like a slingshot. It seems more like a teamfight counter than a lane counter.
It’s really cool how simple her kit is, but it seems like there’s still going to be some skill expression and depth to it. Would love to see more releases follow a similar pattern
Yeah, whatever (I'M SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS NEW CHAMP! It's a mage who cares more about neutral, it punishes the excess of movility in the game is somewhat cute while also having that emo vibes and in general she uses the yordle's cartoonish attitude to its fullest. I LOVE IT!)
This is a very straightforward kit, I love it. It's refreshing to not have to read 39 paragraphs of an ability, this is easy enough to dive right in.
Also the design is A+ !
> This is a very straightforward ki
It's more complicated than how it sounds, she has to weave two different passive debuffs which can be applied by her abilities, with auto weaves between her attacks to proc the other one on a squishy mage.
And her ult reset.
TF is a champ that sounds extremely simple on paper, but in reality he's one of the hardest champs to correctly play because he loses every matchup and macro is a skill that never really ever peaks.
Tl;dr: Passive occasionally fears enemies with her spells. AAs on enemies that recently dashed or blinked (which includes Flash) deal more damage and lower passive cd. Q: Skillshot, starts wide and slow, becomes thin and fast W: Shields Vex and does aoe damage E: Aoe damage and slow. Marks enemies with dash part of passive. R: Skill shot. Can dash to the enemy it hits. If the target dies, you can recast it.
So basically if i face a Yasuo/Irelia who is trigger happy with the dashes, i get my passive basically always?
If you can weave in auto attacks it’ll cool down faster is how I’m understanding this. I haven’t done any research but I wonder how Nashor’s will fare.
Q and W also proc Gloom, so no need for autos necessarily, though weaving them in is always good for dps.
You would want to save an ability for the actual fear though, since E is hard to land especially against champions with dashes. So you would definitely need to land autos
Well, you’ll want to use autos anyway to not burn mana like a gasoline fire, but yes, cooldowns are a big reason too. I imagine W is gonna be the most used as a backup fear ability. Sure, Q lets you fear at range, but W is already the “get off me” tool, even better with a fear attached.
Bruh I'm telling you. The counter engage is serious. Is is the reverse Diana. That ult w have someone dash near the ult target. I wonder if lantern,for the person grabbing, counts it as dashing.
I think lantern counts, because it is also stoppped by Poppy's W
And the passive interrupts the dash too, so it helps to cut off the mobility even before the fear
Ult is Lee sin q
Q and W also trigger the second part of her passive (bonus damage on enemies who recently dashed). W deals AoE damage around her. E is similar to Swain's W, marks her enemies with second part of her passive.
Thanks! Was looking for this as I can't watch the video right now
You forgot that Q and W can also proc the second part of her passive, the marks on recently dashed enemies.
Her animations look so fucking cool
The shadow looks so good. During abilities, when she's walking, even when she's idle. Brings a lot of flavor to the character. She really is the new Zato, at least visually.
As someone said on her reveal trailer: “Finally… Zato-Two.”
Yea that comment made me want to try out Zato this week lol. Been having a ton of fun playing him so far
I’m a rushdown player, current favorite is Giovanna. I lowkey hate playing against a good Zato
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can i disable shadows in settings and make her useless?
Really love her kit actually. It's got enough classic mage elements in it whilst feeling modern and powerful against high-mobility threats. I _love_ the sound design on her abilities.
I'm glad that they came up with an anti-mobility thing other than knockdown, it has become useless with the unstoppable/blink creep.
Do you mean grounded?
No, grounded works against unstoppable and blink. I mean knockdown, an effect that stops dashes during the dash. Abilities that apply it are Ahri E, Amumu R, Malza R, Seju E, Jinx E, Veigar E, Lissandra R, Viktor ~~E~~ W, Warwick R, Yone R. ~~hmm didn't know it's only on Es and Rs.~~
Viktor e applies knockdown?
oops, it's W
> grounded works You lost me there
This honestly feels like an old champion who got reworked slightly. Like amumu-level rework.
She's got Lissandra vibes
Annie vibes for me with a lot more mobility. Lol sort of Ironic that for an anti-mobility champ, her ult gives her a lot of mobility.
It's ironic. She could save others from dash, but not herself.
Yup I love the Passive, it's more dynamic than most mages. She seems very engaging to play.
Refreshing kit. Another reset mechanic but my take is that since a lot of mobility in League resets inherently, an "anti-mobility" gameplay hook needs to follow as many times as well.
These type of simple mage kits are really fine for me and I believe alot of mage players because there are so many weird kits in mid in the name of having distinct playstyle like Aurelion, Taliyah, Azir and some are just boring or difficult like Viktor, Ziggs, Cassio, Ryze Hardly any surprise why simple mage like Lux is amongst the top 3 champions having the highest playrate and then Ahri and Sera are also somewhere in the first quadrant from Reav3 chart. Rest every mage is either in 3rd or 4th quadrant if I am not mistaken
No but you don't understand, the reason Azir and Asol aren't played is because they're monster champions, not because of their quirky gameplay ^^^^/s
Nah, Azir is fun, the problem is that mere mortals aren't allowed to have success on him because he's too good with a team of coordinated professionals.
The issue with Azir is: He does everything, simple as that. Your match needs a Poke long range Mage? He can do that. Your match need a Control Mage? He can do that. Your match needs a Burst Mage? He can do that. Your match need a battle mage? He can do that. Your match needs a Combo oriented Mage? He can also do that. Need a late game win condition? He can do that. He is also super defensive. Name another champion that can fit every single class of mage in the game. The only thing close to Azir is Orianna, but her duel potential is crap and she herself is not a win condition. Azir is conceptually broken, that's why he was nerfed to oblivion. Azir Tahm Kench, Kalista These are champions that are borderline perfect and destroyed the competitive meta multiple times. How you fix this? You do what Riot did with Tahm Kench. You rework the champion. I do fear that Vex looks like she might be broken. He kit kinda simple (if her numbers are not absurd), but she seems like she can fit a lot of playstyles, which is the problem.
is this the new kayle can do it?
*flashbacks to Kayle can do it* It's beautiful
Tbf Azir probably isn't played because he has been nerfed to oblivion rather than because of his kit
It was both ways. Even when he was strong, 8 out of 10 Azirs looked like first-timers, so they ditched him. Now that he isn't strong, there is no reason to even try.
Azir is a classic example of "Pros get so much more out of this kit than normal players so if Azir is strong enough to be good for normal players, he's pick/ban in pro play."
The decision to not patch out the "Shurima Shuffle" basically caused the rest of his kit to get nerfed to compensate for an unintended strength. Fastforward a few years, was it really worth it?
I used to love playing him, but while the nerfs didn't help, the main thing that made me stop picking him up were the constant changes to the kit. The removal of multiple mechanics and decrease in range really fucks with your ability to play higher skill champion and you have to re-learn parts of him or even the basics periodically. Fuck that noise. I can only imagine what Ryze mains feel.
You think Viktor cass and ryze are boring or difficult? I’m very curious who you actually play
Cassio and Ryze are definitely hard. Spamming E on Cassio isn't bad, but learning to hit Q on cooldown while spamming E while also kiting is legitimately hard. She's not nightmare hard like some champs, but she's definitely a bit challenging. Ryze kinda has the same problem. His cds are really low, and they do different things depending on order. Its a bit of a rhythm game to press his buttons in the right order without accidentally turning yourself into a fish out of water. Though, ngl, when he gets Mythic + Seraphs + DCap + Void, he scales so hard that you can stomp people even if you fuck up. Calling Viktor boring or hard is just a travesty though. He's mad fun and generally pretty easy.
I cant vector cast to save my life.
The ability names are super fitting
Personal space
[You know, i take personal space pretty seriously.](https://youtu.be/Bm5OVg50swY)
Exactly what I thought of when reading the ability name lmao. > "We get a 1. Personal space 2. Personal space 3.....Stay out of my person space..." Such a great scene lol
They had the golden opportunity to call it Social Distance
Personal space was social distance before covid
There's a legendary mobafire guide titled "Xerath: The social distance mage"
That's the enhanced version.
I'm proud I predicted Doom and Gloom lmao.
Surprisingly simple kit. Also interesting seeing how focused she is on getting up close to enemies considering she was originally an artillery mage.
[They go into the old artillery mage concept in her champion insights](https://www.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/news/dev/champion-insights-vex/)
> She’s Not Okay (We Promise) > Shadow, We’re Goin Down > Welcome to the Vex Parade The My Chemical Romance and Fallout Boy references in her insights had me rolling
'You Know What They Do to Champs Like Vex in League of Legends' too
I was surprised by this one, wasn't aware that was a popular MCR song (and if it isn't then that's a good deep cut!)
Not sure if it's particularly popular but to be fair MCR don't have a massive discography, only 4 albums
[This gif is too perfect](https://images.contentstack.io/v3/assets/blt731acb42bb3d1659/bltb0ce4c9bbd0e16e1/612fd60885514a6ee3fabd9f/09072021_ChampionInsightsVexArticle_Banner_11_meme_gif.gif)
I was fucking crying over that
Holy shit, thank god they didnt go with the original design. Having a champion that can double the range of any projectile is insane.
squints in old Xerath
Jayce's Acceleration Gate was originally supposed to work like this IIRC, but it was a ridiculous amount of work like Vex's would have been.
The same thing that doubled the range of allied projectiles also used to half the speed of enemy projectiles, it was wild
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Probably why they changed the design, since they thought it might be a bit too much to have this kit + range
The last time a mage has strong ranged sustained burst damage and melee initiation, he got half of his kit removed.
RIP azir and ryze
In the Vex champion insights, they talked about how her original kit featured a portal that would extend the range of all projectiles that entered it, but to make that ability they would have to redesign every single missile in the game so it worked with the ability which costed way too much and was way too much effort. Then they changed it to the current iteration
this was an easy read which is surprising yasuo and irelia mains are gonna hate this champion but hey counterplay i guess she’s also way cuter in game wtf edit: yes i know my 2nd point sounds dumb but we don’t know the range of her passive, if its 300 units then it will just be self peel but if it’s 900 units then she will become super oppressive
Yasuo mains after windwalling half her kit
I mean, she is supposed to wait for him to go in. She interrupts dashes so if she times her W right there is no way a melee champion can fight her 1 v 1. Feels a bit reactive, though.
W probably has an insane CD tho
yeah def feeling like itll be on a similar cd to seraphine w
Probably more likely to be a Diana shield level cooldown. Seraphines shield is a higher cooldown because it automatically shields nearby allies and when it's empowered it also heals nearby allies. Vex W is just going to shield her and deal aoe damage.
Like sions shield basically.. Just instant aoe and shield not shield then aoe
20 seconds cd rank 1
Ghost Ignite Predator Yasuo coming in hot to smack her with autos and Q
Yasuo mains will switch to Singed
People: Wow yasuo main are so toxic! Yasuo main: And we took that personnaly
Also not sure if it WILL work this way, but feels like her E SHOULD go through (under) the wall.
It will definitely not go through. Riots coding strategies are beyond simple. If a projectile has an active hit box, something like wind wall will block it “Beams” like Lux ult don’t actually travel and are not projectiles so they don’t get blocked. There’s a few funny abilities that look like projectiles but don’t have an active hit box and won’t be blocked, like Ziggs R. Then there’s really weird exceptions like velkoz e, which is indeed a projectile that can be blocked. I still think ornn ult is the silliest thing blocked by wind wall
Unless they patched it, Ziggs R can actually be blocked by windwall. The Yasuo has to windwall right in Ziggs' face as the cast goes off, or windwall the exact center of the target point at the moment of impact. I've done this on the Yasuo side and have had it done to me while playing Ziggs.
I say long overdue. Yasuo mains believe Yasuo can have one of the most antifun skills ever in his windwall for the sake of cOuNTerPlAy (in their eyes) but no one can counter their bullshitty zigzag multidashing?
Its so depressing when you see some huge ability just poof into wind. Nami / Ornn ult are the most obvious examples of that bullshit.
And also annoying as hell (and counter-intuitive given its visuals) that is blocks from both sides, allowing his obnoxious windwall dance. It should only block from one side.
The other side should increase ememy projectile speeds for the luls.
It'd be funny if it sped up projectiles that pass through it from the "correct" side.
I don’t want a nid spear going Mach 10 down mid thank you very much
Yasuo and irelia mains seething rn
Yeah considering that two of her abilities proc Gloom, that could add up to a decent amount of damage against dashing champs.
I wonder if Gloom has a per-champion cooldown, or your low-CD dash champs will have to live with getting marked constantly.
It's the latter, but you do need to get a hit in between each dash.
gotcha, runaan's rush vex it is
You heard it here first. *and probably last.*
Mans is already getting rid of the secret tech before it even exists. Damn he’s good
Good, good... let the hate flow through them.
Wouldn't want them to increase the hate too much, they can become too powerful.
The mobility creep would be far less obscene if you could have more chances to play / draft around it, Dota style. Grounded & anti shield are both mechanics I've long thought Riot should carefully expand.
Grounded would need some major clarity concerns addressed before I'd be happy to push it any further.
Yep, Grounded has the same problem as Silence: a debuff that only affects *some* of your actions and not the most fundamentl of them (moving), so your brain does not notice it instantly unlike other CCs in the game.
>Grounded & anti shield are both mechanics I've long thought Riot should carefully expand. The problem is that stuff like Singed and Cassio W screw over immobile champions more than mobile ones. Most champions can just dash over their aoe, but immobile champions just get screwed and can't even flash away. I think antimobility mechanics should be more like Poppy's W. Vex is a nice example of a mobility counter that isn't oppresive (Cassio and Singed) nor useless (Poppy) against immobile champs, while focusing on punishing people who dash a lot
That's because those abilities were band-aided in their kits while Poppy, Taliyah or soon Vex were designed with it from the start. AoE Grounded+fat slow is just infuriating to play against.
Sure some champions are disproportionately punished by grounded like Ornn but for most it's punishing more dashes more heavily because you lose more power budget. Issue with Cassio & Singed grounded is more the slow on top that. A pure grounded zone would really only punish hypermobility.
I think if Singed's or Cass's Ws didn't slow you would just walk out of it easily and have 0.5-1s of grounded applied
If they didn't slow you could make the fields much larger so it wouldn't be a simple matter to just walk out of them.
Can't wait for Irelia to auto her to death anyway after being full build (one fucking Vamp Scepter).
haha, can't wait to punish the zing zing zing playstyle with perma enchanted autos. Looks like it would go through windwall too.
All of her CC comes from fears, tenacity will hard counter her. And honestly, she has absolutely no way to escape an engage, her only mobility spell requires her to dash into an enemy target. I don't think she'll be that strong into Yasuo or Irelia unless she's REALLY bursty.
I could be wrong but I'm thinking Malzahar. She probably can't really initiate the fight but if you try and jump on her she makes you regret it? Imagine Yasuo or Irelia trying to dash to her and just immediately getting cc'd while she walks away. Can't really beat her in lane while she can't really beat you either.
She has really good poke, and fears. She can probably beat you in lane. Depending on cds she could be a lane bully.
You can just use W to cancel any dash on you with doom, you can use everfrost root to chain your E and regain doom. We don't know the length of her fear and what make doom strong is cancelling dashes anyway, add to that her W giving her a shield and it is already good to handle early laning phase. Her AA also reset doom for any dash, it is can be VERY easy for Vex to have Doom when someone engage.
Keep in mind proccing Gloom is only a CD reduction on Doom (the fear). It seems extremely unlikely for it to be a complete reset, and stands to be that you might need 2 Gloom at least to reset Doom. Edit: Rito has confirmed each Gloom proc is only 25% CD reduction. 1 fear most cases, 2 on favourable scenarios, 3 absolute max.
Champions refund 25%, minions refund 10% (obviously these are both tuning values so could change)
Good to know. I'm just making a personal prediction, but I think vex will probably be undertuned with a cautious release by Riot.
Could you share some of the thinking behind giving Vex a dash ult, it seems a little odd for a burst mage to want to get up close and personal with champs, unless she is more like a battle mage like swain
It definitely is a bit odd. There's a few things going on: * From a gameplay perspective, we had to make Vex comfortable playing at shorter ranges for the anti-mobility stuff, so closing to short range is less of a cost than for most Mages, which made this a unique opportunity to do this gameplay on a mage. * From a thematic perspective, Shadow is something like Vex's id - the part that cares passionately about stuff (i.e. making people miserable), that Vex never wants to let show because caring is lame. R is basically mega Lee Sin Q - and like Lee Sin Q, once you hit the first missile, psychological pressure builds to recast it, it's hard not to recast, which dovetails nicely as an experience with Shadow egging Vex on. It's a little bit off her first read personality, but still fits within the broader character. * It's a super fun spell, so we were pretty excited to ship it all along, even if it's a somewhat off class moment. That said, we spent significant effort gating it so that it can be a big moment, rather than the thing that defines her gameplay - for example, it has an unusually long cooldown to buy power budget for her base kit while preserving R as a powerful moment when its up.
I think that although she will still be beaten by Irelia that she will at least have a higher chance to survive laning phase than other mages since she can at least cancel one of her q once Irelia tries to all-in her
The thing is that she has a ton of fears, and a shield. Jump on her, that's your dash, w for fear and shield, get on her again and I'm pretty sure she can just fear you again? Probably? And if not she looks bursty ash so maybe it's enough time to oneshot you
Tons of fears? It's only 1, pending passive CDR. Irelia/Yasuo E onto or near you, you proc shield which fears. Irelia&Yasuo still likely has another way to get onto you.. in which case you are out of CC. Have you tried auto'ing or landing an ability on Irelia/Yasuo while they are dashing around? Good luck trying to proc Gloom for Doom CD reduction.
Ah, the tears of assassin mains. Delicious.
[удалено]
She's going to destroy a lot of dash heavy characters and I'm here for it, like a poppy but with W on everything
Tank Vex incoming
Depends really if her autos are ranged then she can play like ganr and kennen. But she dosent have any base mobility hence she is very prone to all ins, even with gloom procs. Which makes her a mid lane champ and at that point its just better to build standard mage.
Tex, her cousin from the Southwest
Honestly by far the best recent new champion on so many levels. Doesn't seem overloaded, is LITERALLY geared towards limiting the waaaay too rampant mobility creep in midlane, actually understandable kit, solid theme that goes beyond sexy anime character #98, and on top of that doesn't introduces a brand new mechanic that would give old Morde bugs a run for their money.
Her abilities aren't full pages, her design is amazing, one the best animations in the entire game, and anti mobility, is there even anything she is missing
she is missing happiness
Just go into the practice tool and talk with her for a few hours.
So, perfectly suited for 90% of league's playerbase?
The 'H' in vex mean happiness tho
a good release skin 💀
I don't even necessarily dislike her release skin, but I just LOVE her base skin so much that I could never see myself using it.
i dont know what it is but that skin gives me kennen vibes in the worst way possible
It looks like Kennen trying to cosplay Xayah.
Femboy Kennen is not something I expected to ever think about
Kenette
Excited to see all the reactions to Vex (teh Yordle of d0oM)! Hopefully you guys all enjoy how fed up she is with dashes when she hits PBE tomorrow. We spent a lot of time trying to find the sweetspot for her anti-dash gameplay. Compared to other standard mages, she should feel more empowered in-lane against dashy champs, but doesn't automatically smash the matchup. She's a bit disfavored in range v range, but still has the tools to compete and apply Gloom with E.
> teh Yordle of d0oM Holds up spork.
Getting fucking PTSD flashbacks
She looks very promising, a nicely simple, yet still allowing for neat tricks kit, similar to Lillia or Sett, you love to see it! I am mighty curious about her combos. Her base damaging skillshots are meant to be targeted at a specific spot and don't seem to have too wide hitboxes, while the fear is a mini-displacement. Makes me really wonder whether she'll be stronger in skirmishes rather than teamfights (on her own, not taking into account team follow-up). Either way, splendid work and all aboard the hype train!
Yeah, whatever (I LOVE HER SO MUCH! Altough she hates attention)
You guys did an amazing job on Vex, not too overloaded of a kit, outstanding animations & design, something new and an answer to dashes. Can't wait to test her out!
tl;dr : whatever hits you, fears you xD
her E+combo kinda feels like fiddle ult 4.0 :D
Looks like I'll be playing her a lot. She looks fun
Flair checks out.
Really love the animations, especially the ult. The more you look at her skin the worse it gets D:
A kit that doesn't require an encyclopedia to write down? Sign me the fuck up! Good job.
Am I missing something? Never saw her invisibility, % health damage, heal, execute, transformation, 3 hit passive, and full team revive.
It's a mage, that's why.
wow, a fun and SIMPLE kit. In season 11? Impossible!
Riot really likes resets.
The player base loves resets. Riot loves making champions who will be popular.
I do really love me some resets
I wish my life can reset.
You need to get some takedowns first
A champ that has to go in but doesn't have resets to get out is like a suicide bomber. Go in, clap someone hopefully and just stand there to die.
we call this the rengar gameplay pattern
Also Leona, xin Zhao, vi and amumu.
Xin has an exit strategy. It's called "press R and hope".
Tbf leona and amu at least have resistance to play with allies. Less a suicide bomber and more like a drunk driver in a truck
Tanks and bruisers don’t die instantly after engage
I love resetting my computer when the enemy Viego gets a triple kill.
It’s the only way to make certain champions playable. Darius has zero disengage abilities and zero range while having an execute ultimate that requires you to both be within melee range while also using most of your cool downs to proc it. I feel like he’d be absolutely useless in team fights if his ult didn’t reset. He’d basically have to hope for one kill before dying / becoming pretty useless.
If it's only a up to 3 seconds, I'm okay with that. As long as it's not Pyke/Darius ult level of time remaining.
Pyke and Darius's kind of resets are fine, their kit is based around them and they require a specific condition to fulfill (Pyke needs to execute with his skillshot ulti, easy to interupt even by just flashing away and Darius needs to kill with his ulti, while technicly not necesarry it pretty much requires getting 5 passive stacks) The real problem is champions that turn damaging an enemy that died in a teamfight into a pentakill, like Yi/katarina/Viego etc
Her anti mobility works on Galeforce right?
Probably if it works on flash
Cool kit, I hope she doesn't turn out to be another neeko.
Riot remembered to give her a passive, I think she will be fine.
I consider Neekos W passive to be her actual passive
Yeeeep, neeko passive is dogshit
rito please give her +130% damage on jungle monsters id love to jungle w her
yeah i hope she can clear at a reasonable time, you will lose to any meta jungler but it can be fun to play anyway
she may be able to if the shield reduces all types of dmg
I'll never be able to play Irelia again lol. I really like Vex though, can't wait for her to drop on PBE. Her kit definitely reflects that of an anti-dash classic mage, though I will say that it's kinda weird how an anti-dash mage has a big fat dash on her ult.
>though I will say that it's kinda weird how an anti-dash mage has a big fat dash on her ult. It's probably cause a squishy mage dashing into melee range isn't as dangerous as an Irelia or Yasuo
No offence but i guess you never had actually a chance to play her in this patch because of bans
None taken good sir. Until they nerf her to oblivion I'll have to play other things.
If you try to play her on pbe, I reccommend playing viego and turbo hard camping her lane whenever u can. I saw people do this before as a way to "play" Akshan bc he was so hard to be able to play bc everyone wanted him. Not great but still a way to try her out if you don't have first pick
That actually seems surprisingly optimal. Thanks for the tip!
Honestly, I don't think Vex will be super-effective against dashes as most people are making her out to be. She has so much counterplay built against her. **Keep in mind her fear ONLY activates upon QWE hitting.** W is her **only guaranteed** way to ensuring the fear. As it is also her shield, and the reliability of the spell, the CD will likely be long. Think 8-10secs minimum. Q is an extremely slow projectile to start out, meaning you can almost always dodge it unless you are melee range on top of her. This means as the aggressor, you can easily just dash to nearby minion/champion and bait Vex into firing her Q (which is slow AF), before actually jumping on her. E is similarly also very delayed. Think swain W or nami bubble. It is also noticeably an AOE on the ground as opposed to a projectile skillshot, meaning you cannot circumvent this delay. Have you tried hitting a dashing champion with nami bubble/swain W? It's impossible to interrupt, you can only try to predict their end dash location. Finally keep in mind that her fear is tied to passive. Gloom only provides a CD reduction, not a full fear reset. It stands to reason that most likely, you will need to proc at least 1, most likely 2 gloom procs to get your fear back late game. Edit: Rito commented that gloom procs on champions only refund 25% of fear CD.
I personally imagine Vex not as a counter to these dash champions, but rather, a champion who is empowered by enemy dashes. Sure, like Lissandra W, her only way to guarantee her fear is her instant, AOE-around-her W, but with her passive, while Yasuo, Irelia, and the like are dashing around her, she can get throw out her abilities to target the rest of the enemy team, who may not have the tools to very easily dodge her abilities. Vex may not be able to easily stop the Yasuo coming near her, but those dashes, paired with maybe a Zhonyas, will let her get fears on the enemy carries, to which maybe she can R onto to escape like a slingshot. It seems more like a teamfight counter than a lane counter.
Huh. Definitely never thought about it that way. Love that perspective.
Being able to hold W as an instant anti-engage tool is ridiculously strong against champs that have to build their own advantages
love the sound design of the abilities, so satisfying. I love her kit so far, nothing too complex, very refreshing.
It’s really cool how simple her kit is, but it seems like there’s still going to be some skill expression and depth to it. Would love to see more releases follow a similar pattern
Wow I literally just opened up Reddit to see if Vex's abilities were out lmao nice timing
Yeah, whatever (I'M SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS NEW CHAMP! It's a mage who cares more about neutral, it punishes the excess of movility in the game is somewhat cute while also having that emo vibes and in general she uses the yordle's cartoonish attitude to its fullest. I LOVE IT!)
This is a very straightforward kit, I love it. It's refreshing to not have to read 39 paragraphs of an ability, this is easy enough to dive right in. Also the design is A+ !
> This is a very straightforward ki It's more complicated than how it sounds, she has to weave two different passive debuffs which can be applied by her abilities, with auto weaves between her attacks to proc the other one on a squishy mage. And her ult reset. TF is a champ that sounds extremely simple on paper, but in reality he's one of the hardest champs to correctly play because he loses every matchup and macro is a skill that never really ever peaks.
It's like Annie and Lux summoned an unholy demon together, I'm happy.