So excited for you all to see our team's hard work on Hwei!
You can blame me for his gameplay, I look forward to your rage.
But for real, I'm really eager to see players get their hands on Hwei and others to learn to turn him into paint stains as an opponent.
Do you have an idea of how much of the difficulty will come from mechanics vs how much will come from the decision-making?
He's much more about decision making than mechanical execution. That said, he has no point and click abilities so you'll need to land your skillshots to succeed.
Great job! It is a long time since I feel so hyped for a release. I love non linear gameplay.
Do you feel like he is a more early, mid or late game champion?
Thank you!
He's more of a mid-late champion since his W spells are utility focused. That means he's at his individual agency peak when Q is maxed and E is about maxed, so 12-14ish.
That said, he scales great with gold and experience, just transitions more into a team fighter that controls the flow of battle in late game rather than hyper scaling like Kass, Veigar, or ASol.
very weird to put an invoker clone in a game where heroes don't have nearly as much agency. he won't turn invisible, he won't have mana drain, he won't have summons, he won't have disarm, so basically a lot of his spells just deal damage and have some mild cc attached.
That's because he's not invoker. Hwei is about micro decision making. He has 4 cooldowns like a normal mage in League of Legends, his base Q/W/E/R.
What makes Hwei different than other mages is he has more options at the cost of mobility, durability, and reliability. For that he gains versatility, utility, range and zoning.
Does he start with the full spellbook when he levels an ability? Or does the spellbook open when he levels the subsequent ability?
I.e. is it lvl 1 he only has QQ then lvl 2 gets access to QE when he puts a rank in E? Or at lvl 1, can he cast QE immediately?
1 point in Q unlocks QQ/QW/QE. All 3 abilities mirror Q's rank, so a second point in Q will increase QQ/QW/QE to rank 2 alongside it.
That said, QQ/QW/QE all share Q's base cooldown and mana cost, so you aren't getting 3 abilities worth of cooldowns, just 3 abilities to choose from.
He has 9 base spells and an ultimate, but he has normal cooldowns for a mage allowing him to cast up to 4 spells including his ultimate back to back. No 10 spell chains.
Thanks for creating my new main.
I hope you really enjoy playing him! Message back and let me know how your games go.
Is his secondary role support??
He's viable as a support, but is best with gold and experience.
If for some reason his support role becomes too strong we'll adjust it to prioritize mid lane but would prefer to keep it viable.
Just wanted to say, his gameplay looks incredible, and whoever did the splash art and ability animations absolutely nailed it as well.
Thanks I'll pass thing along to the team!
Genuine question, since he seems to have almost everything possible in his kit (damage, utility, mana restores...) how do you think about him in terms of balancing? Like I'd be afraid with so many things in his kit, some of his abilities might become "not worth using". Is there a thought process that sure, maybe some will be sub-par and only useful in very specific situations and that's okay, or does that go differently?
Hwei has 4 cooldowns (Q/W/E/R) but each base ability can select from 1 of 3 options, so he has a normal mage kit's shape of cooldowns just with more options.
Each of the basic abilities is themed for art and gameplay, so Q is damage, W is utility and E is control. Each time you cast, you're picking the best tool for the job of that type of output.
Every ability was designed with a niche that it's best at when compared against its two share counterparts. Some games you might find more reliance on some abilities and less on others, and that's okay. Other games it might flip and you're using the reprioritized ones from last game most often.
If we need to balance cadence or sustain, we can touch base cooldowns and mana costs. If we need to address specific problem spells we can do that on the particular spell by buffing or nerfing its outputs without touching the others. But because they all have a niche use case, no single spell should ever become worthless.
Hwei's mana sustain is countered by high mana costs. One of the most valuable skills a player looking to master Hwei needs is when to use WE to refund mana, finding units to hit 3 times to do it, and how to play safely while his shields and movement speed are on cooldown because of it.
Ah, so just to confirm, basically the underlying spells formed from the q+w+e combinations don't have a cooldown, only his q, w, and e do correct?
So if you use a QE combination, do both Q and E go on cooldown? Or does only the Q go on cooldown? If it's the latter, do different combinations matter for CD - ie: is the CD the same for QQ, QW, and QE?
Yes that's right, QQ, QW, and QE share the cooldown of base Q.
I love you it's been forever since we had an actual mage, zoe was released 6 years ago. Vex a bit more recently, but she dives into melee on R.
Only thing i find a bit weird is his W+W (shield), while it certainly fits his theme as an ink mage it feels out of place as a control mage, i don't really see myself using it over the two others. Why would i shield myself when i can kite with speedup or deal more dmg.
Aesthetically he looks a bit too bland for my taste, would love to see his model get updated.
At the end of the day kit looks 9/10, so happy we finally get a new dps/control/burst mage
Glad you're excited!
Regarding WW, it has many uses. Sometimes you want to tank minion hits to hold the wave for a freeze. Sometimes it saves you from an ignite all in. Sometimes you use it when taking objectives to mitigate damage from pit monsters. Sometimes keeping someone else alive is more important than move speed or mana/damage.
So we have to use one ability from each book (damage, utility and control) in a spell rotation and decide which one is damage and which one is utility right?
Each subject has its own shared cooldown.
If you use QQ, QW, or QE, it puts Q on cooldown locking out QQ, QW, and QE. W and E are not put on cooldown by using QW or QE.
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