Would like to say that I appreciate how civil people are being in the comments lol. I understand I have an unpopular opinion on Hwei but I was expecting a lot more hostility. Everyone disagreeing with me is being… surprisingly cool about it. So used to people telling me I’m scum of the earth or that I should kill myself on Vars II 😂
Yeah, I really disagreed with many of the things you said, particularly comparing Hwei only to supports rather than mixing in mid comparisons, but there's no point in not being civil.
I dont really watch lol esports, do the casters actually memorise the names of abilities? Wouldnt it be easier to just call them by their assigned keys?
After watching pekin play a bit of hwei, u can definitely find usages for pretty much all of his abilities. They can all serve a purpose in niche scenarios and that will separate a good vs bad hwei
Absolutely, in my own testing with him in Midlane, I was finding that while yes, often 1 Q or W was better than the other 2, which one that was would shift as the game progressed, meanwhile which E is the best changed pretty much every time I used it because they all serve different purposes. Hwei definitely feels like an easy to learn hard to master type champ, which is a good thing
@@Nautiliam no, I'm referring to EE. Vars mentioned he didn't really understand the use cases for EE and what I posted are good use cases for it. It's the only E spell that reliably hits a champion through minions and it assists your QE in killing ranged minions quickly so you can push faster. QE WE EE is the fastest waveclear rotation, just wait to WE until the QE is hitting everything so the WE instance damage procs on every minion then EE with one of the remaining WE instances.
Missed opportunity to make his abilities be coloured red blue and yellow and combining abilities can result in green purple and orange abilities. Thus having 7 instead of 9 but more interesting comboing
That would require some new way of handling the cooldowns or letting him double cast abilities. Currently, all Q abilities go on CD when you cast a Q ability. So you can't QW and then QE. With your version though, he could hypothetically QW and then WQ for the same ability a second time in a row. Cool idea visually, but I think it would be really hard to implement in a balanced way.
Do NOT Get me Started on How Red Yellow Blue IS NOT a Real Primary Set of Colors >_< Light is Red Green Blue, Dye(whether that bye ink, paint, crayon, or chalk) is Yellow Cyan Magenta.... Each is the other's Secondary Set, Orange and Purple are Tertiary Colors. If you don't know what Color Theory is, Please look it up and learn how Art Class lied to you. Edit: The reason this upsets me so much, is how many times I've been argued with by people incorrectly insisting that I'm wrong.... So now whenever I see someone spreading the lie of Red Yellow Blue Primary, it just... it sets me off >.< I'm sorry
I played him on pbe and you’re severely underrating his potential. For example shuffling your abilities can keep the enemy lane on their toes, and prevent them abusing the match up knowledge since your play patterns can be wildly different from another hwei. That alone makes him very effective. He also is incentivized to shuffle for the different benefits. He is fun and versatile. His moves are useful even if one pulls ahead of another.
quick question since I haven't been able to get onto PBE, how long are hweis CDs on his abilities? cause I feel like that paired with the numbers are gonna be the defining point as to what his role in the game is
I really don't think he's a 200 years champion. Each of his abilities are super simple and do one to three things, which doesn't make his kit all that more stacked than, say, Udyr who has less abilities that do a lot more things each. Besides, let's not pretend that a lot of us wouldn't have wanted to see a kit like Hwei's on a Ryze VGU. We'll have to see, but I think Hwei has the potential to be a fan favorite, which would be fitting given his connection to Jhin.
I couldn’t agree with you more, I think this is the best possible way they could’ve designed a champion with this concept. The real difficulty just comes from knowing when to use what ability, and that’s more macro than it is micro.
@@asdasdae i firmly believe that the Invoker route would have been 100% better than this. cds being tied together in this way limits his viability in basically every role. the boring spells that basically do nothing other than being marginally different shapes for damage different function for bad support and cc that is just honestly sad. who knows maybe the scaling on his cc will make up for the fact that he basically has a shoe-ined support spell instead of another damage spell like other mages. so maybe playing him like a barebones champ with no interesting spells will be fine but this all felt like a massive missed opportunity. he could have been invoker who is even more macro and tons of micro. if they dont want to go the orbs route to maintain using less buttons thats fine. give q-w-e charges or passively give charges stored across all of the spell types. if someone wanted to spam damage go ahead spam healing circles fine. but maybe make the cc button cost 2 or1.5 maybe each spell itself has a cd so you cant repeat the same spell when you cast but they still all share a charge gate so you dont get a repeat of all those issues with ryze.
Yeah. It could've been so much worse honestly. I won't go "yo what the fuck" *look up the character online* "That ability _also_ does that? What?" I'll go "oh yeah I died cause he hit me with CC in that teamfight." I won't have to actually read up on every ability of each character to find out it does true damage if it's a full moon or some shit. A true jack of all trades. We'll see how he turns out in practice, but I can't bring myself to consider him bullshit or all too overloaded. If anything I'm more concerned about him not excelling at anything or getting a niche. But I think that's fine too, all things considered.
Honestly I think most of his abilities will never get use in their current state, QW is harder to hit than QQ and does less damage, Most of W use will be in pro-play, and EE seems to be Hwei’s best cc tool.
@@LuisLopez-in1reI completely disagree i played him on pbe and he feels fun. His moves are fun to use and his abilities are great and varied. It’s not boring or unfun. He can rotate many spells and combos. It’s creative and entertaining to swap up poke styles or all in/support. He is fun.
The biggest fun of playing Invoker is comboing skill while your keyboard prays for mercy, he is also kinda viable with every build so in the late game or when heavily ahead, he maxes all builds therefore being powerhouse. Riot didn't want to turn Hwei to late game powerhouse like that so they restricted him to 3 spells with colour shared cooldowns thus forcing player to go QWE roatation. I wish Hwei had an ability to cast 3 spells but any of the 3, so if player wanted he could go QQQ for busrt, EEE to chain cc them or WEE to save.
dude i don’t care how much of a balance nightmare this man ends up being i fucking love hwei’s gameplay so much, obviously numbers are a bit high rn but god he’s so much fun as someone who loves artillery mages edit: after watching the video i think it’s almost antithetical to say he won’t have a niche because the thing that separates him from so many other artillery mages is his ability to choose what he wants to do, when you fight a xerath you always know the second you dive him he has no escape, but in hwei’s case he can use wq to run, ww to shield himself and stand his ground, eq to fear you easily at point blank, etc etc. league isn’t a fighting game so options don’t mean as much here but the fact that you constantly have the freedom of choice in what you want from his spells (in addition to your enemy knowing that you have options) is what keeps his gameplay rewarding by learning when to use what and mastering his combos. i think if he was just mage qiyana he wouldn’t be nearly as interesting or enjoyable in terms of gameplay, the “novelty” of his gameplay is what makes him so enjoyable after all, having so many options, learning to perfect your inputs and fight back where some champs just crumple to due thier lack of flexibility is something that’s gonna keep me around for a while as a final note, ee’s use case is that it’s EASILY the fastest of his disruption spells (bar eq at point blank, but at that point you shouldn’t be using ee if someone’s directly in front of you) and can’t be blocked my minions AND synergizes decently with his passive and qe, keeping enemies within your damage zones also unrelated, if you use qe and then we you can have the bonus damage go off on everyone inside the fissure, very minor but neat tech, and i get the feeling that’s something people will find a lot of with such a diverse kit!
Ngl hwei isnt as complicated as many see him to be. U just have to understand how his abilities mix and match and thats like 90% of his difficulty gone.
It's the same deal with Invoker in DotA. A lot of his difficulty is not in his skill effects, but in memorization. His skill effects are simple, but mixing and matching the right combo of Quas/Wex/Exort at the right moment requires good memory.
@@wastelandkinginvoker takes way more skill and has way more combos than hwei, consider that all Hwei can do is EX into QX, because his W abilities don't do damage and all E and Q abilities share respective cooldowns. He can't even chain CC, because all his CC is in E Hwei only gets one Q one W and one E per rotation, Invoker has access to all 10 of his spells at all times, provided they are off cooldown
@@wastelandking except invoker is a string of 4 buttons followed by the actual casting of the ability. this is 2 one to select damage support or cc and then the third wich is the spell itself. this will be significantly easier.
There were basically two points you made in this video. I can almost entirely agree with the second one (he's a jack of all traits, and by extent he doesn't excel at anything so you're just better off playing a specialized champion that does that one thing better), with an exception that I think the flexibility might actually be valuable enough sometimes to justify picking him. But the second point (the one that you probably will just end up using the same three abilities over and over again) on the other hand... After watching enough Hwei gameplay on pbe I can confidently say that's not the case at all and that while you may end up using some abilities more often then other, it's gonna be because some situations in the game are more common than other. You will use the fireball as your default damage source f.e. for trades and single target burst. Your lightning, as you said, for follow up, especialy from afar (you can think something like Jhin w), but also for finishing off, or even just cutting off, fleeing enemies. Also your e-w is a better follow up, so if you are in range you should probably do that first. Rift is mainly your wave clear, but also your aoe. If you are fighting in a tight spot in the jungle or of you need to hit multiple targets at once and are sure you can keep them in it (f.e. with the help of your teammates or your e-e, it's one of the few uses this ability has) you should choose that. While the movement speed rectangle is the ability you are probably gonna be using the least, it still has a few uses: chasing down enemies and rotating between fights either with or without your team. Remember, you can basically give your whole team a Nocturne q. Your shield pool is probably the only one you will be using in direct combat and in teamfights, that's your go-to no-brainer if you are ever in doubt. Orbs, like you said, mana sustain, basically Nami e + tf blue card. It's the one you want to use in the neutral game, exception for your w-q if you are rotating. The rift procs them so you usually wanna use q-e + w-e when waveclearing. You might wanna use it for fighting sometimes, namely when you are too far away for your shields to matter, so might as well get the extra damage (again, your abilities proc it), or when you feel very safe and/or need the extra dmg more than shield. Your fear ball is your safety tool, use it for a quick "get off me". This + your w-w might often fully counter and punish a cocky engage from an enemy who got too overconfident. Eye of Sauron, like I mentioned earlier is a great follow up, but it's primarily for zone controll (one does not simply walk into Mordor). It's your strongest cc and creates a zone your enemy "can't" go through (think Victor w), but also the least reliable as it's the hardest to land because of the delay, that's why you should reserve it for those two things. The claw is the exact opposite - his weakest cc, but the easiest one to land and therefore the most reliable. Like I already said, it can be used to pull people back into your rift, keeping them in a little longer, or if your ally has some aoe constructs you want to keep people in (Victor w, Morgana w, Anivia r). The displacement might be useful form time to time, you could try to pull someone into Veigar cage for example. It's also your only aoe cc so it can be useful for teamfights if there is nobody else to hold them down or they are stacking and just asking for a wombo-combo. You can also use it when you need the extra aoe dmg. And finally, since it's your most reliable one, this is your panick button. If you don't know what to do, just press e twice and it will do something. So remember, when you are panicking on Hwei: if somebody jums on you - e-q, if nobody jumps on you - e-e. That's all I could think of so far. Thank you for your time.
while there might be some use for each ability depending on the situation, i can confidently say that the pbe footage you've seen is basically only gonna shape the first couple of months of how you play him on live servers. there's way fewer people on pbe compared to live servers (cuz who the fuck wants to be forced to play on LA servers when they live in kyrghyzstan) with the influx of more people playing him when he gets released on live servers there'll eventually be a meta way to play him established that might vary wildly from pbe as more people playing means more chances of discovering the optimal playstyle. essentially while currently on the pbe you might find use for all of his kit there might be a point in the future when enough data has been gathered to actually establish what's the good playstyle
@@goranpersson7726 Like I said, "while you may end up using some abilities more often then other, it's gonna be because some situations in the game are more common than other", it's not about an optimal playstyle. The "optimal" (commonly the better option) use of each ability , from what I saw, got established even before Hwei hit live servers. It's q-q (or q-e in neutral), w-w (w-e in neutral) and e-e. But his other skills are still useful in other situations, so literally any except for waveclearing and trading in lane, wich are the most common state.
I like how hwei's kit isn't really hard, he has 10 abilities but players aren't force to master all of them like aphelios. They can just choose to spam the same 3 abilities and he'd still be functional
Functional… but very bad lol If someone genuinely played Hwei, intentionally only using 3 abilities, unless there’s a balancing issue where they’re overpowered, I say they should be reported for trolling I’m not even trying to be an elitist or an asshole, this is just genuine advice If you can’t understand a complex character’s 4 complicated abilities, **or** Hwei’s 10 simple abilities… just play a champion with 4 simple abilities? There’s always Annie
using only the same three abilities would be like playing jayce and only using the ranged form. hwei has 9 abilities for a reason. limit yourself to three and you just cripple yourself
@@emoimo4171i hate to say it but reporting for trolling when they just aren’t properly using it not out of a lack of desire to win, but just by them being bad, is being a butthole. There’s no two ways about it its just reporting someone for being bad which is not ok.
@@atsukana1704 No, it’s reporting someone for being **intentionally** bad. That’s like saying you’re sorry for only playing Nidalee in cougar form all game, you’re just getting used to her, and maybe you’ll learn one of her human abilities next game. If you go into a game (not against bots) playing a character you don’t understand, with no intention on learning them during that game, you’re trolling and you’re intentionally making your team lose
I really like Hwei. Its really nice getting another artilery mage after so long that still feels new and fun to play. personaly, i really enjoy when riot makes not overcomplicated champs, and like you perfectly described, him having 10 abilities doesn't make him very complicated because the abilites on their own are pretty simple.
I gotta say, I also appreciate the fact that the Q (second) is always a straight skillshot and W is always a Circle, probably makes it a lot easier to learn (dont see a pattern with the e tho)
E is usually the 'didn't fit anywhere else' ability. For example Lux has Q=line skillshot W= utility E= the other damage ability, Vel'koz Q=line skillshot W=wave clear E=CC, in most champions the furthe you are from the left the less formulaic the abilities are. Garen Q=auto empower W=utility E= his ability, Sett Q=auto empower W=shield E=his ability, Camille Q=auto empower W=utility E=her spell
QQ - skirmish and mid range poke QW - long range poke QE - clear wave, poke through the wave and zoning WQ - roaming WW - teamfight/skirmish peel WE - spam EQ - 1v1, avoid assassins, setup to R and QQ EW - hard zoning, cc follow-up EE - mid range poke, setup to R and QQ R - use after landing cc or slow. Combo: WE, then use AA between Qs and Es and R for maximum damage.
What makes Invoker so powerful in Dota 2 is his utility. He can go down many different build paths depending on the game. Obviously, itemization is much more different and more impact full in Dota, but I feel that's what will make Hwei so powerful. His ability to adapt to the game around him and each unique situation. Like a Swiss army knife Also, references to Invoker Qq- Cold Snap Qw- Sunstrike Qe- Meteor Wq- Ghost walk Ww- Alacrity We- Forged Spirits Eq- Deafening Blast Ew- EMP Ee- Ice Wall His ult is the one unique thing he has that invoker doesnt
The main difference between Aphe and Hwei is that I understand Hwei's entire kit first try with no problem, but I still struggle to understand Aphe's kit to this very day
sounds like a you problem. maybe try reading the spells/guns for once. he has 5 weapons, every weapon has a theme, if you use any colored gun as the primary the theme applies on-hit and on the ultimate. using the q spell sets up his secondary gun which is swappable by pressing w kinda like jinx q works. every gun has 50 shots before automatically swapping to the next. q costs mana and 10 ammo, auto hits cost 1 ammo. the guns in order are: green - sniper, red - lifestel, blue - aoe, purple - slow/root, blue - aoe, white - dps. hwei also has %max health on idk qq and execute dmg on qw or smth, i cant remember it yet but after 1-2 games with him it will be easy to at least get a grasp of every spell
@@callmeshifu4114 now the confusing part is when to use which combination, since while red gives healing, red + green gives long range sustain while red + white turns him into Aatrox. Purple green is point-click morgana Q while purple-blue is Everfrost. And then there's combos that allow you to use 4 different guns in a single fight, and you'd have to maneuver all that while also knowing which gun comes next after you use up all ammos etc... Aphelios is just confusion. Hwei is just one kit but differnt usage, there's no combining stuff
@@RiverNunui dont know anyone else but for me a way to memorize the combination Is to think it as an augment of an mmo, for example, the sword swings but if i add a thunder shard the swing now electrocutes, stuff like that.
As an aphelios main I must say, Hwei looks SOO fun to play. I love it when champ have multiple different ways of playing them and finding the style that fits you best. Ive b een waiting for a mage champion who would be similar to aphelios. Most other mages just have straightforward abilities that u just need to hit and done. With hwei however you can actually put some thought process into what youre doing
Might be biased here but have you tried Seraphine ? She is a step forward what you are looking for since every of her basic abilities benefit from her 2nd cast passive, while not as sharp as Hwei seems to be, leads to some thinking during interactions. Otherwhise I agree that versatile champs are often a ton of fun 🙂
You should note that Hwei's QW not only has execute damage, but also has its conditional damage amp applied [ EITHER ] if the target is CC'd [OR ] if the target is completely alone inside the large AoE (Basically, Karthus skittles). So all of his Q's will outpace each other in their specific contexts. Same goes for every one of his other abilities. The only Ability I see being disproportionately better than his other skills is his WE with the bonus damage and mana regen seeming to be his bread and butter W.
I know this is weird, but there’s a similar character like this in Pokémon Unite (Mew). At release, that Mon used to be purely an artillery mage with Solar Beam + Light Screen, but I think the Mon (although currently top tier) finds itself using all six moves. I kind of trust Riot can handle Hwei correctly.
oh man, i remember when mew first came out beam spams beams spams everywhere I think mew is in a much better place now, but its the release mew CD's that make me not worry to much about Hwei. I like the way riot did his cooldowns, it seems each ability has a basic but also niche use (nice flexibility), and it doesn't seem like it'll make your fingers into mangles spaghetti (the reason I don't play much mew). i think Hwei is/will be okay
PekinWoof has taught me in his videos that all hwei skills are useful in various scenarios, the problem you say about only the same 3 or 5 skills being used is not the case at all.
I think a measure of a good Huey is going to be how many use-cases they can find for each individual ability. I think a bad Huey can easily get away with only using one ability from each of his trees, all the others are just optimizations you''ll want to take advantage of to squeeze the most out of the champion.
maybe they could, but when i played Hwei, usually only 1 ability could do what i wanted. EQ is the only E fast enough to protect you. QW is the only long range Q. QQ is the only reliable poke. QE is the only Q that hits the whole wave. Ws are just different, WQ is out of combat/chase, WW is his only protection, WE is in lane sustain+only E that applies passive. They each have their use.
@@gameguru42392in different champions.... Also the same indie developer that's openly stated that they would stop producing character with more that 4 skills because it's hard to balance..... Don't get me wrong, I'm open to see what they can do with this guy, but I don't believe THAT much in them
His ultimate absolutely needs to receive a subject modification. Disaster = heavy burn damage, Serenity = self-cast AoE that gives Hwei & nearby allies shield/speed, Torment = heavy slow. It's really that simple - separate the ult's effects, make them more pronounced, give each subject its own identity. I do think that the combo versions of his spells should adopt traits from the subjects they're lending from. For example, Severing Bolt is Disaster + Serenity, so maybe allow Hwei to use it on allies for a long-range burst of shielding or speed as well? Molten Fissure (Disaster + Torment) already slows, which makes it a good pairing of Disaster & Torment (the CC subject). It's in his kit, just not throughout.
I do agree that he is "Jack of all trades, master of none". But personally, i think of him like "Jack of all trades, master of none, but better than one"
The way you talk about Hwei in theory seems very similar to the *What Happened to Orianna* video. You criticized Orianna’s Jack-of-all-trades nature and how it detracts from her capability in individual circumstances, but I think that’s one of her (and by extension Hwei’s) bigger selling points: they have answers for any game state. They have protective capabilities that allow them to peel for (other) carries when necessary, whether via defense or disabling. They also have the ability to deal great damage at good range when they’re the carries. That versatility often makes for a good champ to play when your comp is already balance or when you want to focus on mastering one champion in particular to climb.
I am really hyped for Hwey. He is pretty much a stance character from fighting games. Each stance has its use and, while he may feel bland some times, i must admit that its quite a healthy champion. Think of him as an introduction to Aphelios, playing Hwey may be a way to be incentivised to use more complex champions
Personaly i would say that Huaweis kit is just a better execution of Viegos kit fantasy. Like you basicly get kit made out of many already existing mage abilities and can combain them into intresting combos.
Viego isn't about turning into mages or having lots of abilities.. In fact when I play Viego I prefer turning into Bruisers or ADC's. Only mages I'd ever want to turn into are non-ult reliant burst mages like Leblanc. Also the fact your performance on Viego improves with knowledge on other champions is exceptionally satifying and can not at all be replicated by more abilities.
12:17 That's honstly how I thought they were gonna handle Hwei and was so bewildered with what they did. Although I have to admit that while what the did may be less practical, it is kinda cooler.
I honeslty love the design of pressing the ability buttons twice to choose the version of the spell. They should use it on more champs on at least one ability.
I do think the concept of a “Jack of all trades” champ can actually be valuable within the Mage class since it is a role where many champs feel too specialized. Like it’s been a long time since we’ve had a mage like Ori or Azir who just 1v9s regardless of team comp and situation.
His ability opportunity cost could be solved by giving all 10 abilities their own cooldowns, and just making them really long. Force the player to vary up their strategy on a macro level, and allow for skills of the same color to potentially combo together.
I feel like there was actually 3 ideas One of the abilities having to be a circle One of the abilities having to be a forward line. One of them having to be different for the ability , while keeping the idea that first is forward area damage , second supporting with shield heal speed buff or slow cc , third being cc detailed Its like making three similar play styles. First plays like velkoz , poke them until they dies. Second being like sona , third being ziggz
I think comparing to Invoker is a good way for Riot to identify issues for Hwei's design. My main issue is that Hwei suffers from the cd on each of his "color prep skills". Not in the sense that he can't cast all 9 spells back to back, since Invoker is limited by his Invoke cooldown as well, but it's very limiting that he can't cast multiple spells under each color. Depending on the situation, let's say if there is someone locking down your target, ie. WW ult. You would want to be able to cast multiple Q color spells to capitalize on the enemy already being locked down. There's no reason for Hwei to want to cast any W color spells in that situation. Maybe Riot can give Hwei casting charges on his passive, and each spell he casts costs 1 charge. The max number of charges, or the charging time can scale with Hwei's level. The 2nd step spells are the ones with the cooldowns. So he can't cast 3 QQs together, but it's possible to throw QQ + QW + QE.
TBH Hwei is really not complicated. Yes, he has 10 spells, but they're each very simple. Passive makes enemies hit by 2 abilities explode in a small AoE for a bit of damage. QQ is a line skillshot that deals a small AoE of damage when it hits something, QW is a long range ground AoE with execute damage, QE is a straight line that leaves a DoT and slow field WQ is a straight line that gives allied champs move speed, WW is a ground AoE that gives allied champs shield, WE makes your next 3 instances of damage do a bit more and restore mana EQ is a straight line that fears the first thing it hits, EW is a ground target that spawns an eye that roots the first thing it hits, EE is a ranged Sett E that doesn't stun R is a skillshot that gives a champ a field that expands over the duration, dealing damage and slowing enemies within Compared to, say, Briar where every ability is an entire novel and has 50 different micro-effects. Briar passive makes her autos and abilities apply a bleed, the bleed stacks to 9, but each stack after the first only adds 25% more damage, also she heals herself for 25% of the damage, and if the target dies while bleeding she heals for 125% of the remaining bleed; also she gets up to 50% more healing from anything the lower her health gets. Briar Q dashes to a target, deals damage, stuns them for 0.85 sec, shreds armor, and resets her auto timer. Briar W dashes to target location, then if there's an enemy near the landing zone she gets a buff and a different W: the buff gives her true sight of the nearest enemy, ignore unit collision, bonus attack speed, bonus move speed, and her autos cleave, and the cleave can crit. While yes, it's a "frenzy" and she ignores any other targets, you can manually cancel it by just casting E. During said buff, W changes into an ability that enhances her next auto with unstoppability, bonus range, bonus damage, heals her, and resets her auto timer. Briar E channels for up to 1 sec, during which she has 40% damage reduction and heals a % of her max hp every 0.25 sec. Also while channeling, she is unstoppable and the channel cannot be interrupted by anything. At the end of the charge, she deals magic damage in the target direction and slows all enemies by 80%. If it was fully channeled, units hit are also knocked back. If they are knocked back into terrain, they rebound off it, taking even more magic damage and are then stunned for 2 sec after. Briar R has _double the range of Xerath ult,_ but functions similarly to a faster moving Vex ult. She fires a projectile in a direction, the projectile interrupts channels of any champ it hits and reveals them, cleanses Briar of all CC, has her unstoppably dash to the target, cause an explosion of damage around them, fear everything the explosion hits for 1.5 sec, causes the same buff as her W but with even more bonuses: she also gets bonus armor, mr, lifesteal, and even more move speed. Just like with W buff, she is "uncontrollable" but that can be ended at will by casting E. Literally 75% of the random stuff in Briar's kit could (and should) be removed. There's no reason for her to get bonus healing from all sources, no reason for her to heal for 125% the remaining bleed on an enemy that dies while bleeding, no reason for her Q to stun, no reason for her berserk to end on E cast, no reason for berserk to give ghosting or true sight of the target or make her autos cleave, no reason for W2 to make her next auto unstoppable, no reason for her E to give her damage reduction, no reason for the E to be unstoppable, no reason for the knockback nor bonus magic damage on terrain nor the 2 sec stun at the end, no reason for her ult to be _double Xerath R range,_ no reason for R to disrupt channels, no reason for it to cleanse CC on Briar, no reason for it to do _both_ a huge damage explosion and a fear. (same with K'sante and Bel'veth tbh, they also have a lot of unnecessary stuff randomly slotted in.)
Hwei is overcooked to be mega complicated because people think a lot more is "harder". As opposed to how it plays in gameplay. Somebody like Fiora/Riven are much more complicated/complex to play with "simpler" abilities or somebody like Akali/Katarina with actual multiple fast combo. Or having choose variants of your abilities like qiyana + decisions making in teamfights. Hwei is more similar to someone like udyr were technically he has "A lot" of abilities but they are just variations were you should "choose" the better one for the situations. With the situation being clearly obvious and even if you are wrong you still get a min floor of effectiveness. Like the video said you would just choose the most obvious/strongest ability most of the time. A lot of the abilities have a lot of overlap. For example if the xerath W clone is super powerful, you should just choose the CC ability most reliable in stunning them in place for landing it yourself. If it's hard to land the xerath W, then you would just throw up the fireball. If you need to clear the wave or it's even hard to land the fireball. Then you would just use the fissure to clear the wave and tick enemy for some part of the damage like vel'koz. The hard part of remembering button pushes combos and not playing the character. Invoker is a skin deep comparison because all of invoker spells work completely different with wildly different usage and scenarios. Using some abilities over other is a true opportunity cost.
Your suggestion in the end is already kind of how it works, except the first key press is the effect and the second is the shape. QQ, WQ and EQ are all in a straight line although WQ resembles WE more. QW, WW and EW are all circles on the ground. and E second cast is a wild card.
Molten fissure does regularly hit every minion of the wave for its entire duration though? And it seems you are underestimating its use cases, which are zoning enemies, peeling(combined with eq and wq you are garenteed to escape as they will be feared and then slowed), and doing massive damage to enemies you can keep confined to it(like, for instance, jungle monsters and objectives) Yeah, if you want the most damage out of a spell in a given instance, QE isnt going to be the best choice often. But what is the point of picking a control mage if you are going to only use their abilities to do damage and not control the battlefield? There are better choices for mages if you just want burst... Its like when people pick Lux and then instantly detonate their e the whole game, even when they are actively trying to escape pursuit which would be stemied by leaving it as a slowing field. What are they doing?! Also, WW has bad shield strength at base(90-170) and high scaling (+70% ap). But it has even worse of both for allies, being half(45-85+35% ap. For comparison, Sona's is 25-105+25% ap). And both values require 3 seconds inside it, so unless you have high ap and the allies are going to be a small area for a bit, 42.5+17.5%ap shielding is not going to be more useful than the tempo increase of wq. Thats barely covers a enchanter support auto...
Invoker has separate cooldown on all his abilities with 5 sec cooldown to switch between them. So just give Hwei 5 sec cooldown on the stance and separate cooldown for the actual abilities. That way he can throw out 3 mediocre abilities every 5 sec in stead of 3 mediocre abilities with long cooldown when other characters have 3 good abilities with long cooldown
THIS IS WHAT IM HOPING RIOT DOES. Having low cds would not only make his gameplay a lot more fun when mastered, it also exposes bad habits hwei players would make since having low cds mean they spam the same few abilities even more, creating a defined pattern to punish. This will also give incentive to reduce the damage/CC numbers to give him more definition as an ARSENAL mage like invoker was rather than just another artillery/control/Support mage.
Thats only when at the start, invoke goes down by 0.3 seconds every level, by 20 minutes you'd be level 15 or so so it's like 2.5 seconds. 25+ minutes you'll easily be level 20 it would be 0.7 seconds cooldown and if you have Aghanim's Scepter it goes down to 0.4 seconds.
from what I've seen from videos of people playing him mid there doesn't seem to be an ability from each group that out class the others. Maybe his w which can give mana back but it's mainly because it's the only really useful ability for a midlaner. His 3 Qs have a clear purpose and you'll almost never hesitate to use one or the other unlike what was said in the video his red trail ability is really good for clearing waves and pocking through minions but lack the raw damage of his QQ (the projectile) so trail for wave clear and pocking and QQ for killing or trading, the execute is just that a finisher it's not meant to be used when the enemy isn't low or stuned. It's the same for his E abilities, the fear is a great get off me tool, the eye is a long root that works really well with your execute and the last one is the easiest to land and can hit several targets and it isn't blocked by minions either.
In short what Vars says Riot should do to make Hwei a good champion is "Remove 75% of all his abilities and just take all the creativity of an artist motif away." Even if he's bad I'll play him. I like him and I feel represented by him. I'm just happy he's releasing!
I'm so glad that you came to the same conclusions as I did about him. In my vid on hwei vs invoker, I was saying just how bland hwei felt to play because of how you get locked out of abilities when using some, like... it's like if you play Nidalee and if you use cat q you lose human q... it would feel really trash to play! I absolutely agree that he might devolve into a "optimal 5-6" ability champion in a team fight, where he just seems to lose a third of his kit due to it being sub-optimal. I wish it was like Invoker, where the sub-abilities have the cooldowns, and not the paints. That would reward choosing the right spell for the situation, but then when the situation changes you don't feel like shit for now not having access to the right spell anymore. Invoker has very long cooldowns on all his spells, but a near instant access to each spell independently in the lategame. The spells are ALSO weaker than other heroes, since he has 10... but HE HAS ACCESS TO ALL 10. Hwei is weaker due to having 10, but only has access to 3+ult at any time. It's weird, and feels bad.
he's like a generic invoker with recycled abilities, that's specially sad because he had so much potential, anyway i didnt expected much from Riot designs to begin with
If he didn't have shared cooldowns then people would be complaining like "ZOMNG RITO NOTHER 200 YEARS CHAMPION HAS 20 DIFFERENT ABILITIES AND JUST NEEDS TO BUILD MANA TO SPAM"
@@floofzykitty5072 people were already complaining that he has 10 abilities. Istg league players will just whine any time a champion is more complex than darius
it doesnt matter if they make hweis abilities suck, because hes a new champ riot is just gonna crank the everliving shit out of his numbers until he becomes op/strong like every new release instead of making the abilities work differently
I think the biggest disappointment, and also the reason the novelty will wear off, is that the theme ultimately doesn't work. You have a character that's supposedly "The Visonary", yet all he does is "stuff everyone else does". You're not playing as a cool magic artist who creates spells on the fly from pure creation, you're a walking plagiarism machine that just does worse versions of what everyone else can do...
I think they gave him 9 abilities cuz of who he is. He is supposed to weave in spells, mix them which somehow forces you to be creative, which is kinda in line with who he is as a champion in Lore. But yes, the only way to tone him down is to make his skill deal either low or high conditional damage. To me he is more of a....Lore champion, a champion which is heavily defined by his lore and identity. And yes, I think Aphelios is a bit more complicated than Hwei? But not really. Aphelios cannot choose his weapons, u have to make use of what u currently have and be creative about it, whilst Hwei, as Vars said, has access to all of his abilities, meaning at any given moment, u can think of which spell you can weave, whether you're going for poke, sustain, 1v1 dance, team damage, or execution. He is indeed an interesting champ which might have a difficult time fitting in. ALSO if you notice the wheel behind him, it changes color depending on your current spellbook, but then u have wash brush, which maybe some can make use of to somehow take advantage of how your opponent will react to the color you have:) .Nice analysis on him 😀
In my experience, QE is far better for fast pushing than QQ. The hitbox is large enough to reliably hit the entire wave, especially if you also toss an EE on it to suck the minions in, while QQ requires you to be standing directly in the middle of all the minions to hit them all, which is not at all feasible in a normal laning scenario.
No Identity? You said it yourself, he's the mage with the most skills in game. It means, he's one of the most versatile heroes in game. He's a mash up of 3 types of mage. CC mage, Artillery Mage, and Support Mage. Kinda like a Lux, Karma and Xerath combined. Heroes like Hwei do not have a particularly strong ability because he make it up for versatility instead. Xerath/Syndra/ Ziggs have better harass/range? But he can roam better, and buff his allies. Karma's poke and protect are better? He can waveclear better. Sona/Seraphine's shields are better? He has more range and can harrass/poke better. Leona/Blitzcranck/Nautilus have better CC? He can harass from a long distance.What he lacks vs dedicated champs, he make up to things they can't do instead. That's the advantage of a hero that can do a lot of things. Oh and his Ult is a Slow. Having a 5 man slow on a mage with linear and AOE skill means he can combo easier.
For me, hwei doesn't seem nearly as complex or hard to learn as aphelios, because while he has 10 abilities, the abilities itself are pretty simple and because his q w and e all have distinct purposes that apply to all three of their versions, hes easy to understand
Honestly I really love his design. I'd much rather have a champ with 10 abilities where one ability is a line or two of text. Then to have a champion where one ability is like a whole kit of another champion and you gotta read an essay just to figure out what q does.
I think a better way to design him would be to give him a set number of charges for all his abilities, he can use whichever ability he wants but that takes up a charge, and once he runs out of charges he cant use any ability until a charge refreshes
I have to say, im a bit worryied Hwei will have old Udyr's syndrome, where, each "stance" will get buffed/nerfed separately, thus, making only one playstyle at a time viable.
i think that his abilities are quite simple and monodimensional, but i think it's a good thing, i also would like to point out that his abilities have more sinergy than you consider, for example QW with EW, or EE can be used to keep enemies on your QE or R. the example you made about always using QQ is a bit shaky to me because QE is actually a great tool for dealing a lot of damage in an area, for zoning or to create distance while damaging. I personally do not think he has a low skill ceiling, and he is more useful than other artillery mages in teamfights. These are my impression right now but i guess we should just wait and see how he performs.
My favorite part was how people kept comparing him to Invoker, failing to see that under the surface, his kit is extremely basic and doesn't even come mildly close to what Invoker asks of the player. There's nothing to think about vast majority of the time.
In response to use case of the abilities: QE is your teamfight spell, It has the largest AEO of all of his Qs and slows, I can see support Hwei using this ability almost every time. EE is part of Hwei's wave clear combo it can hit every minion, and then pulls them close enough that QQ can hit all of them. Additionally, the EE gains more value if you cased QE as you can pull champs into the center of the slow zone.
Really feels like the ult should've been built around multi-dipping the same stances - like a set attack per stance that wipes the brush clean & resets any stances on CD, or picks up colours present in the environment to force enter that stance again? Feels like that would actually bring in depth to his combo game?
Huh. Some time ago, I had a similar idea. It came from a thought how a minion feels surrounded by all those superpowered entities. It evolved to an idea of a veteran mercenery who, instead of overwhelming power, adapts to the situation. He'd had 3 forms: spear (diver), axe and shield (tank/bruiser), and 3rd one I couldn't decide on (crossbow for adc, hammer for cc and area control and few other ideas based on the idea of experienced medieval combatant). The way he'd changed abilities would function similar to Corki package. Every X minutes 2 weapon racks would appear with weapons you are currently not using, and you could change your class. Each form would have separate equipment and separate gold spending (you've used spear earned 1000g and spent it on spear, then you switch to axe and have that 1000g back to spend on different set of items so you wouldn't lag behind). So basically, a champion who could change a role if the situation required it, but unlike Hwei, he would be fully dedicated until his armoury respawned.
I love playing Aphelios, learning what he does and combos to make came pretty quick for me. I’ve play him in the mid lane sometimes because he plays more like an AD mage as much as a bot lane marksman. Seeing Hwei basically being an AP Aphelios is going to be awesome to try out
Invoker succeeds by having builds you choose by leveling certain abilities of his, letting them all be as powerful as they should. Hwei fails to mimic invokers design
good points, i do agree it would make more sense to have his kit setup to do one thing. e.g(all dmg in one rotation or all cc in one rotation) but i dont think hes gonna be weak... feel like hes gonna be rewarding to someone who masters him. he will probably be weak for new ppl so hopefully they dont buff him prematurely
The big thing with Hwei is that it feels like while they are trying to make Invoker, they made his spells have a bit too much overlap as to cause the reason why you think many people will just use 2 spells in each grouping at most. Comparing it to Invoker then, where if a situation occurs depending on your chosen desire to engage (attack or run away or support or etc.) with it you have only a single *correct* choice, even if the spells are also fundamentally pretty simple, whereas Hwei often has situations where 2 or 3 spells within the same category would achieve the same result.
9:19 here, Vars says that Hwei’s weakness is what makes him a strong champion in my opinion. I see and know what you are saying, that being, Jacks of all Traits are not the best in this game due to minmaxing being so strong. However, his variety is what makes him reliable. He’s the kind of champion who always can perform above 100% because of the different things he can do. His damage, as of now, is very strong, even though it is backloaded. His support capabilities are quite strong, because his peel doesn’t just come from his E and his shield is actually massive. Hwei is a sort of champion that does 75% of an artillery mage, 90% of a burst mage, 30% of an enchanter, and 50% of a peelbot. This can all be done at once too and he won’t have to sacrifice much out of one job to complete the other because it’s combined in a lot of overlapping ways. I agree with all that Vars is saying but I agree to disagree that it is what will be Hwei’s downfall. There hasn’t been a single game in which I completely neglected to use one of his unique abilities.
I think a much better way to give him more freedom would've been to give the second cast the cooldown rather than the first. This way if he wanted to spam damage he could, same with cc or utility. This would let him fully dip into all 3 aspects of his character while having more risk/reward because spamming one of the 3 at once would leave you without the other. Example he would use QQ but that would put WQ and EQ on cooldown instead of all of the QW and QE
but why would it be BETTER? Right now he's a fairly simple champion with straightforward abilities Q=damage W=utility E=CC, kinda like Lux, or Morgana. Now imagine how it would feel if morgana could cast three pools at the same time or stun you for 6seconds with three bindings. +there's a magic to have them separated. Now Q doen't have to be as strong as E or W. they only have to balance 3 abilities to be similar three times, rather than balancing all 9
@@hondragaming593 I imagine such a champion would be hell to play against. If every ability was a source of CC or unlimited support or all damage. There are reasons champion's abilities aren't all the same thing.
Hwei's kit is more designed to situational moments rather than braindead nuke. QQ: Laning phase poke QW: Someone landed a hard CC QE: You are being chased in the jungle by the entire enemy team WQ: You must escape or chase WW: Teamfight; DoT sustain; mitigate a predictable source of damage (I.E. Cait's ult) WE: You are low on mana or you are sure you are going to hit your next abilities and want more damage. That or you are snowballing EQ: Someone is chasing you and you want to escape. EW: You want to zone out someone or check a bush EE: Teamfight As you said, if you want to play an enchanter you'd better play Sona, but Sona doesn't have hard CC without her R, nor she has long range artillery damage. And the same can be said for all the other champions. He is not broken, but not as useless as it might seem. I think he should deal more damage thou
His main strength is that he has answers to many different situations. Unlike many other champions, he doesn't have to do with second best option, he can choose one that fits his current need the most. And tbh he only lacks a blink/dash and invisibility.
Would like to say that I appreciate how civil people are being in the comments lol. I understand I have an unpopular opinion on Hwei but I was expecting a lot more hostility. Everyone disagreeing with me is being… surprisingly cool about it.
So used to people telling me I’m scum of the earth or that I should kill myself on Vars II 😂
Yeah, I really disagreed with many of the things you said, particularly comparing Hwei only to supports rather than mixing in mid comparisons, but there's no point in not being civil.
League of legends community is only toxic in game
@@boldisordorin9010Reddit begs to differ. That Nami/Syndra skin drama was a trip.
That because you upload videos about genshin impact there. And genshin community is... genshin community.
@@the_last_balladwait what do you mean? I compared Hwei to xerath and ziggs, other artillery mages
I fell bad for all of the casters that will have to learn hes abilitys name
Yep, cant wait for the "Huawei did something" pro play moments like apelios had
Its not as bad as aphelios theyll be fine
@@gameguru42392the gameplay isn't, but the names are worse imo
I dont really watch lol esports, do the casters actually memorise the names of abilities? Wouldnt it be easier to just call them by their assigned keys?
@@inbeing3464 they do memorise the ability names and always use them and refrain from using key combinations as they are technically alterable
Hes not the worst in terms of damage, hes more of an abusive utility knife.
I actually really like that analogy. He isnt a butcher knife like true artillery mages or zoners, but he isnt a utility belt like most supports.
@@thekirbycrafter7229 swiss army knife
After watching pekin play a bit of hwei, u can definitely find usages for pretty much all of his abilities. They can all serve a purpose in niche scenarios and that will separate a good vs bad hwei
but keep in mind PBE elo is really low, we'll see how this champ performs on Live servers...
Absolutely, in my own testing with him in Midlane, I was finding that while yes, often 1 Q or W was better than the other 2, which one that was would shift as the game progressed, meanwhile which E is the best changed pretty much every time I used it because they all serve different purposes. Hwei definitely feels like an easy to learn hard to master type champ, which is a good thing
His EE is useful for poking through minions, comboing in teamfights, and assisting your waveclear :)
Yeah after heardinf what Vars said, I don’t think he played this champ to a point of very understanding
*QE
@@Nautiliam no
@@Nautiliam no, I'm referring to EE. Vars mentioned he didn't really understand the use cases for EE and what I posted are good use cases for it. It's the only E spell that reliably hits a champion through minions and it assists your QE in killing ranged minions quickly so you can push faster. QE WE EE is the fastest waveclear rotation, just wait to WE until the QE is hitting everything so the WE instance damage procs on every minion then EE with one of the remaining WE instances.
@@TheKaratejesus Oh yeah you're right
Crushing Maw is easy to land, hits multiple targets, and can combo into his Qs and Ult. It's a good part of his toolkit, especially in teamfights
Those sett e and senna w transitions are too smooth it's insane.
Missed opportunity to make his abilities be coloured red blue and yellow and combining abilities can result in green purple and orange abilities. Thus having 7 instead of 9 but more interesting comboing
Yeah doing something with the primary colors would've been cool, and also easier to remember which is which.
perhaps that could be a skin idea who knows
That would require some new way of handling the cooldowns or letting him double cast abilities. Currently, all Q abilities go on CD when you cast a Q ability. So you can't QW and then QE. With your version though, he could hypothetically QW and then WQ for the same ability a second time in a row.
Cool idea visually, but I think it would be really hard to implement in a balanced way.
Do NOT Get me Started on How Red Yellow Blue IS NOT a Real Primary Set of Colors >_< Light is Red Green Blue, Dye(whether that bye ink, paint, crayon, or chalk) is Yellow Cyan Magenta.... Each is the other's Secondary Set, Orange and Purple are Tertiary Colors.
If you don't know what Color Theory is, Please look it up and learn how Art Class lied to you.
Edit: The reason this upsets me so much, is how many times I've been argued with by people incorrectly insisting that I'm wrong.... So now whenever I see someone spreading the lie of Red Yellow Blue Primary, it just... it sets me off >.< I'm sorry
@@durk5331 Hwei mixes paint though not light
I played him on pbe and you’re severely underrating his potential. For example shuffling your abilities can keep the enemy lane on their toes, and prevent them abusing the match up knowledge since your play patterns can be wildly different from another hwei. That alone makes him very effective. He also is incentivized to shuffle for the different benefits. He is fun and versatile. His moves are useful even if one pulls ahead of another.
quick question since I haven't been able to get onto PBE, how long are hweis CDs on his abilities? cause I feel like that paired with the numbers are gonna be the defining point as to what his role in the game is
What can you tell me about his CDs and scaling? I love scaling champs but the nerfs to his AP ratios seemed super harsh.
@@jader8799 He is already on the Wiki. Q is 10-6 seconds, W is 18-16 seconds and E is 15-11 seconds. R goes from 140 to 80.
Not really, most of his stuff can be blocked by minions and his damage is meh even with items.
I really don't think he's a 200 years champion. Each of his abilities are super simple and do one to three things, which doesn't make his kit all that more stacked than, say, Udyr who has less abilities that do a lot more things each.
Besides, let's not pretend that a lot of us wouldn't have wanted to see a kit like Hwei's on a Ryze VGU.
We'll have to see, but I think Hwei has the potential to be a fan favorite, which would be fitting given his connection to Jhin.
I couldn’t agree with you more, I think this is the best possible way they could’ve designed a champion with this concept. The real difficulty just comes from knowing when to use what ability, and that’s more macro than it is micro.
@@asdasdae i firmly believe that the Invoker route would have been 100% better than this. cds being tied together in this way limits his viability in basically every role. the boring spells that basically do nothing other than being marginally different shapes for damage different function for bad support and cc that is just honestly sad.
who knows maybe the scaling on his cc will make up for the fact that he basically has a shoe-ined support spell instead of another damage spell like other mages. so maybe playing him like a barebones champ with no interesting spells will be fine but this all felt like a massive missed opportunity.
he could have been invoker who is even more macro and tons of micro. if they dont want to go the orbs route to maintain using less buttons thats fine. give q-w-e charges or passively give charges stored across all of the spell types. if someone wanted to spam damage go ahead spam healing circles fine. but maybe make the cc button cost 2 or1.5 maybe each spell itself has a cd so you cant repeat the same spell when you cast but they still all share a charge gate so you dont get a repeat of all those issues with ryze.
Yeah. It could've been so much worse honestly.
I won't go "yo what the fuck" *look up the character online* "That ability _also_ does that? What?"
I'll go "oh yeah I died cause he hit me with CC in that teamfight."
I won't have to actually read up on every ability of each character to find out it does true damage if it's a full moon or some shit.
A true jack of all trades. We'll see how he turns out in practice, but I can't bring myself to consider him bullshit or all too overloaded. If anything I'm more concerned about him not excelling at anything or getting a niche.
But I think that's fine too, all things considered.
Honestly I think most of his abilities will never get use in their current state, QW is harder to hit than QQ and does less damage, Most of W use will be in pro-play, and EE seems to be Hwei’s best cc tool.
@@LuisLopez-in1reI completely disagree i played him on pbe and he feels fun. His moves are fun to use and his abilities are great and varied. It’s not boring or unfun. He can rotate many spells and combos. It’s creative and entertaining to swap up poke styles or all in/support. He is fun.
The biggest fun of playing Invoker is comboing skill while your keyboard prays for mercy, he is also kinda viable with every build so in the late game or when heavily ahead, he maxes all builds therefore being powerhouse. Riot didn't want to turn Hwei to late game powerhouse like that so they restricted him to 3 spells with colour shared cooldowns thus forcing player to go QWE roatation. I wish Hwei had an ability to cast 3 spells but any of the 3, so if player wanted he could go QQQ for busrt, EEE to chain cc them or WEE to save.
dude i don’t care how much of a balance nightmare this man ends up being i fucking love hwei’s gameplay so much, obviously numbers are a bit high rn but god he’s so much fun as someone who loves artillery mages
edit: after watching the video i think it’s almost antithetical to say he won’t have a niche because the thing that separates him from so many other artillery mages is his ability to choose what he wants to do, when you fight a xerath you always know the second you dive him he has no escape, but in hwei’s case he can use wq to run, ww to shield himself and stand his ground, eq to fear you easily at point blank, etc etc. league isn’t a fighting game so options don’t mean as much here but the fact that you constantly have the freedom of choice in what you want from his spells (in addition to your enemy knowing that you have options) is what keeps his gameplay rewarding by learning when to use what and mastering his combos. i think if he was just mage qiyana he wouldn’t be nearly as interesting or enjoyable in terms of gameplay, the “novelty” of his gameplay is what makes him so enjoyable after all, having so many options, learning to perfect your inputs and fight back where some champs just crumple to due thier lack of flexibility is something that’s gonna keep me around for a while
as a final note, ee’s use case is that it’s EASILY the fastest of his disruption spells (bar eq at point blank, but at that point you shouldn’t be using ee if someone’s directly in front of you) and can’t be blocked my minions AND synergizes decently with his passive and qe, keeping enemies within your damage zones
also unrelated, if you use qe and then we you can have the bonus damage go off on everyone inside the fissure, very minor but neat tech, and i get the feeling that’s something people will find a lot of with such a diverse kit!
Ngl hwei isnt as complicated as many see him to be. U just have to understand how his abilities mix and match and thats like 90% of his difficulty gone.
It's the same deal with Invoker in DotA. A lot of his difficulty is not in his skill effects, but in memorization. His skill effects are simple, but mixing and matching the right combo of Quas/Wex/Exort at the right moment requires good memory.
@@wastelandkinginvoker takes way more skill and has way more combos than hwei, consider that all Hwei can do is EX into QX, because his W abilities don't do damage and all E and Q abilities share respective cooldowns.
He can't even chain CC, because all his CC is in E
Hwei only gets one Q one W and one E per rotation, Invoker has access to all 10 of his spells at all times, provided they are off cooldown
He has less combos than lee sin
@@xolotltolox7626well WE does give 3 nami orbs.
@@wastelandking except invoker is a string of 4 buttons followed by the actual casting of the ability. this is 2 one to select damage support or cc and then the third wich is the spell itself. this will be significantly easier.
There were basically two points you made in this video. I can almost entirely agree with the second one (he's a jack of all traits, and by extent he doesn't excel at anything so you're just better off playing a specialized champion that does that one thing better), with an exception that I think the flexibility might actually be valuable enough sometimes to justify picking him. But the second point (the one that you probably will just end up using the same three abilities over and over again) on the other hand... After watching enough Hwei gameplay on pbe I can confidently say that's not the case at all and that while you may end up using some abilities more often then other, it's gonna be because some situations in the game are more common than other.
You will use the fireball as your default damage source f.e. for trades and single target burst. Your lightning, as you said, for follow up, especialy from afar (you can think something like Jhin w), but also for finishing off, or even just cutting off, fleeing enemies. Also your e-w is a better follow up, so if you are in range you should probably do that first. Rift is mainly your wave clear, but also your aoe. If you are fighting in a tight spot in the jungle or of you need to hit multiple targets at once and are sure you can keep them in it (f.e. with the help of your teammates or your e-e, it's one of the few uses this ability has) you should choose that.
While the movement speed rectangle is the ability you are probably gonna be using the least, it still has a few uses: chasing down enemies and rotating between fights either with or without your team. Remember, you can basically give your whole team a Nocturne q. Your shield pool is probably the only one you will be using in direct combat and in teamfights, that's your go-to no-brainer if you are ever in doubt. Orbs, like you said, mana sustain, basically Nami e + tf blue card. It's the one you want to use in the neutral game, exception for your w-q if you are rotating. The rift procs them so you usually wanna use q-e + w-e when waveclearing. You might wanna use it for fighting sometimes, namely when you are too far away for your shields to matter, so might as well get the extra damage (again, your abilities proc it), or when you feel very safe and/or need the extra dmg more than shield.
Your fear ball is your safety tool, use it for a quick "get off me". This + your w-w might often fully counter and punish a cocky engage from an enemy who got too overconfident. Eye of Sauron, like I mentioned earlier is a great follow up, but it's primarily for zone controll (one does not simply walk into Mordor). It's your strongest cc and creates a zone your enemy "can't" go through (think Victor w), but also the least reliable as it's the hardest to land because of the delay, that's why you should reserve it for those two things. The claw is the exact opposite - his weakest cc, but the easiest one to land and therefore the most reliable. Like I already said, it can be used to pull people back into your rift, keeping them in a little longer, or if your ally has some aoe constructs you want to keep people in (Victor w, Morgana w, Anivia r). The displacement might be useful form time to time, you could try to pull someone into Veigar cage for example. It's also your only aoe cc so it can be useful for teamfights if there is nobody else to hold them down or they are stacking and just asking for a wombo-combo. You can also use it when you need the extra aoe dmg. And finally, since it's your most reliable one, this is your panick button. If you don't know what to do, just press e twice and it will do something. So remember, when you are panicking on Hwei: if somebody jums on you - e-q, if nobody jumps on you - e-e.
That's all I could think of so far. Thank you for your time.
while there might be some use for each ability depending on the situation, i can confidently say that the pbe footage you've seen is basically only gonna shape the first couple of months of how you play him on live servers. there's way fewer people on pbe compared to live servers (cuz who the fuck wants to be forced to play on LA servers when they live in kyrghyzstan) with the influx of more people playing him when he gets released on live servers there'll eventually be a meta way to play him established that might vary wildly from pbe as more people playing means more chances of discovering the optimal playstyle. essentially while currently on the pbe you might find use for all of his kit there might be a point in the future when enough data has been gathered to actually establish what's the good playstyle
@@goranpersson7726 Like I said, "while you may end up using some abilities more often then other, it's gonna be because some situations in the game are more common than other", it's not about an optimal playstyle. The "optimal" (commonly the better option) use of each ability , from what I saw, got established even before Hwei hit live servers. It's q-q (or q-e in neutral), w-w (w-e in neutral) and e-e. But his other skills are still useful in other situations, so literally any except for waveclearing and trading in lane, wich are the most common state.
I like how hwei's kit isn't really hard, he has 10 abilities but players aren't force to master all of them like aphelios. They can just choose to spam the same 3 abilities and he'd still be functional
It is just a bad design
Functional… but very bad lol
If someone genuinely played Hwei, intentionally only using 3 abilities, unless there’s a balancing issue where they’re overpowered, I say they should be reported for trolling
I’m not even trying to be an elitist or an asshole, this is just genuine advice
If you can’t understand a complex character’s 4 complicated abilities, **or** Hwei’s 10 simple abilities… just play a champion with 4 simple abilities? There’s always Annie
using only the same three abilities would be like playing jayce and only using the ranged form. hwei has 9 abilities for a reason. limit yourself to three and you just cripple yourself
@@emoimo4171i hate to say it but reporting for trolling when they just aren’t properly using it not out of a lack of desire to win, but just by them being bad, is being a butthole.
There’s no two ways about it its just reporting someone for being bad which is not ok.
@@atsukana1704
No, it’s reporting someone for being **intentionally** bad.
That’s like saying you’re sorry for only playing Nidalee in cougar form all game, you’re just getting used to her, and maybe you’ll learn one of her human abilities next game.
If you go into a game (not against bots) playing a character you don’t understand, with no intention on learning them during that game, you’re trolling and you’re intentionally making your team lose
I really like Hwei. Its really nice getting another artilery mage after so long that still feels new and fun to play. personaly, i really enjoy when riot makes not overcomplicated champs, and like you perfectly described, him having 10 abilities doesn't make him very complicated because the abilites on their own are pretty simple.
I gotta say, I also appreciate the fact that the Q (second) is always a straight skillshot and W is always a Circle, probably makes it a lot easier to learn (dont see a pattern with the e tho)
E is usually the 'didn't fit anywhere else' ability. For example Lux has Q=line skillshot W= utility E= the other damage ability, Vel'koz Q=line skillshot W=wave clear E=CC, in most champions the furthe you are from the left the less formulaic the abilities are. Garen Q=auto empower W=utility E= his ability, Sett Q=auto empower W=shield E=his ability, Camille Q=auto empower W=utility E=her spell
Props to your editor(s)! Seem to be getting better with each vid. Nice job as usual
QQ - skirmish and mid range poke
QW - long range poke
QE - clear wave, poke through the wave and zoning
WQ - roaming
WW - teamfight/skirmish peel
WE - spam
EQ - 1v1, avoid assassins, setup to R and QQ
EW - hard zoning, cc follow-up
EE - mid range poke, setup to R and QQ
R - use after landing cc or slow.
Combo: WE, then use AA between Qs and Es and R for maximum damage.
I really like that Hwei is an actual spell-caster: you have to make decisions on what spells to cast in each situation.
What makes Invoker so powerful in Dota 2 is his utility. He can go down many different build paths depending on the game. Obviously, itemization is much more different and more impact full in Dota, but I feel that's what will make Hwei so powerful. His ability to adapt to the game around him and each unique situation. Like a Swiss army knife
Also, references to Invoker
Qq- Cold Snap
Qw- Sunstrike
Qe- Meteor
Wq- Ghost walk
Ww- Alacrity
We- Forged Spirits
Eq- Deafening Blast
Ew- EMP
Ee- Ice Wall
His ult is the one unique thing he has that invoker doesnt
The main difference between Aphe and Hwei is that I understand Hwei's entire kit first try with no problem, but I still struggle to understand Aphe's kit to this very day
sounds like a you problem. maybe try reading the spells/guns for once. he has 5 weapons, every weapon has a theme, if you use any colored gun as the primary the theme applies on-hit and on the ultimate. using the q spell sets up his secondary gun which is swappable by pressing w kinda like jinx q works. every gun has 50 shots before automatically swapping to the next. q costs mana and 10 ammo, auto hits cost 1 ammo. the guns in order are: green - sniper, red - lifestel, blue - aoe, purple - slow/root, blue - aoe, white - dps.
hwei also has %max health on idk qq and execute dmg on qw or smth, i cant remember it yet but after 1-2 games with him it will be easy to at least get a grasp of every spell
Green gun gives poke, purple gun roots, blue gun has aoe, red gun gives healing and mobility and white gun is just broken
@@callmeshifu4114 now the confusing part is when to use which combination, since while red gives healing, red + green gives long range sustain while red + white turns him into Aatrox. Purple green is point-click morgana Q while purple-blue is Everfrost. And then there's combos that allow you to use 4 different guns in a single fight, and you'd have to maneuver all that while also knowing which gun comes next after you use up all ammos etc...
Aphelios is just confusion. Hwei is just one kit but differnt usage, there's no combining stuff
You dont gotta understand Aphe. Build assassin and only engage when he doesn't have white gun
@@RiverNunui dont know anyone else but for me a way to memorize the combination Is to think it as an augment of an mmo, for example, the sword swings but if i add a thunder shard the swing now electrocutes, stuff like that.
As an aphelios main I must say, Hwei looks SOO fun to play. I love it when champ have multiple different ways of playing them and finding the style that fits you best. Ive b een waiting for a mage champion who would be similar to aphelios. Most other mages just have straightforward abilities that u just need to hit and done. With hwei however you can actually put some thought process into what youre doing
Might be biased here but have you tried Seraphine ? She is a step forward what you are looking for since every of her basic abilities benefit from her 2nd cast passive, while not as sharp as Hwei seems to be, leads to some thinking during interactions.
Otherwhise I agree that versatile champs are often a ton of fun 🙂
You should note that Hwei's QW not only has execute damage, but also has its conditional damage amp applied [ EITHER ] if the target is CC'd [OR ] if the target is completely alone inside the large AoE (Basically, Karthus skittles).
So all of his Q's will outpace each other in their specific contexts. Same goes for every one of his other abilities. The only Ability I see being disproportionately better than his other skills is his WE with the bonus damage and mana regen seeming to be his bread and butter W.
I know this is weird, but there’s a similar character like this in Pokémon Unite (Mew).
At release, that Mon used to be purely an artillery mage with Solar Beam + Light Screen, but I think the Mon (although currently top tier) finds itself using all six moves.
I kind of trust Riot can handle Hwei correctly.
oh man, i remember when mew first came out
beam spams
beams spams everywhere
I think mew is in a much better place now, but its the release mew CD's that make me not worry to much about Hwei. I like the way riot did his cooldowns, it seems each ability has a basic but also niche use (nice flexibility), and it doesn't seem like it'll make your fingers into mangles spaghetti (the reason I don't play much mew).
i think Hwei is/will be okay
PekinWoof has taught me in his videos that all hwei skills are useful in various scenarios, the problem you say about only the same 3 or 5 skills being used is not the case at all.
True, each one has it's own use, so they have different situations where they're useful.
I think a measure of a good Huey is going to be how many use-cases they can find for each individual ability. I think a bad Huey can easily get away with only using one ability from each of his trees, all the others are just optimizations you''ll want to take advantage of to squeeze the most out of the champion.
maybe they could, but when i played Hwei, usually only 1 ability could do what i wanted. EQ is the only E fast enough to protect you. QW is the only long range Q. QQ is the only reliable poke. QE is the only Q that hits the whole wave. Ws are just different, WQ is out of combat/chase, WW is his only protection, WE is in lane sustain+only E that applies passive. They each have their use.
me and my duo are gonna play aphelios hwei bot to confuse the hell out of everyone
10 skills should be easy enough to balance for this non-indie game dev team
They techincally have to balance 650+ abilities already you goofball
@@gameguru42392in different champions....
Also the same indie developer that's openly stated that they would stop producing character with more that 4 skills because it's hard to balance.....
Don't get me wrong, I'm open to see what they can do with this guy, but I don't believe THAT much in them
I wish people in ffxiv had a similar mentality to league players on reading abilities.
Funny how the champion with 9 basic abilities that all have different use is said "One-dimensional"
His ultimate absolutely needs to receive a subject modification. Disaster = heavy burn damage, Serenity = self-cast AoE that gives Hwei & nearby allies shield/speed, Torment = heavy slow. It's really that simple - separate the ult's effects, make them more pronounced, give each subject its own identity.
I do think that the combo versions of his spells should adopt traits from the subjects they're lending from. For example, Severing Bolt is Disaster + Serenity, so maybe allow Hwei to use it on allies for a long-range burst of shielding or speed as well? Molten Fissure (Disaster + Torment) already slows, which makes it a good pairing of Disaster & Torment (the CC subject). It's in his kit, just not throughout.
I do agree that he is "Jack of all trades, master of none". But personally, i think of him like "Jack of all trades, master of none, but better than one"
The way you talk about Hwei in theory seems very similar to the *What Happened to Orianna* video. You criticized Orianna’s Jack-of-all-trades nature and how it detracts from her capability in individual circumstances, but I think that’s one of her (and by extension Hwei’s) bigger selling points: they have answers for any game state. They have protective capabilities that allow them to peel for (other) carries when necessary, whether via defense or disabling. They also have the ability to deal great damage at good range when they’re the carries. That versatility often makes for a good champ to play when your comp is already balance or when you want to focus on mastering one champion in particular to climb.
Aphelios bot and Hwei support will be known as the 400 years lane.
💀
I am really hyped for Hwey. He is pretty much a stance character from fighting games. Each stance has its use and, while he may feel bland some times, i must admit that its quite a healthy champion. Think of him as an introduction to Aphelios, playing Hwey may be a way to be incentivised to use more complex champions
Personaly i would say that Huaweis kit is just a better execution of Viegos kit fantasy. Like you basicly get kit made out of many already existing mage abilities and can combain them into intresting combos.
Don’t feel like that’s Viegos Kit fantasy at All.
Viego isn't about turning into mages or having lots of abilities.. In fact when I play Viego I prefer turning into Bruisers or ADC's. Only mages I'd ever want to turn into are non-ult reliant burst mages like Leblanc.
Also the fact your performance on Viego improves with knowledge on other champions is exceptionally satifying and can not at all be replicated by more abilities.
12:17 That's honstly how I thought they were gonna handle Hwei and was so bewildered with what they did. Although I have to admit that while what the did may be less practical, it is kinda cooler.
I honeslty love the design of pressing the ability buttons twice to choose the version of the spell. They should use it on more champs on at least one ability.
"Hwei is a jack of all trades and master of none."
Meanwhile Invoker in DotA 2 when played by a pro player "I AM A GOD!"
I do think the concept of a “Jack of all trades” champ can actually be valuable within the Mage class since it is a role where many champs feel too specialized. Like it’s been a long time since we’ve had a mage like Ori or Azir who just 1v9s regardless of team comp and situation.
His ability opportunity cost could be solved by giving all 10 abilities their own cooldowns, and just making them really long. Force the player to vary up their strategy on a macro level, and allow for skills of the same color to potentially combo together.
I feel like there was actually 3 ideas
One of the abilities having to be a circle
One of the abilities having to be a forward line.
One of them having to be different for the ability
, while keeping the idea that first is forward area damage , second supporting with shield heal speed buff or slow cc , third being cc detailed
Its like making three similar play styles. First plays like velkoz , poke them until they dies. Second being like sona , third being ziggz
I think comparing to Invoker is a good way for Riot to identify issues for Hwei's design. My main issue is that Hwei suffers from the cd on each of his "color prep skills". Not in the sense that he can't cast all 9 spells back to back, since Invoker is limited by his Invoke cooldown as well, but it's very limiting that he can't cast multiple spells under each color. Depending on the situation, let's say if there is someone locking down your target, ie. WW ult. You would want to be able to cast multiple Q color spells to capitalize on the enemy already being locked down. There's no reason for Hwei to want to cast any W color spells in that situation.
Maybe Riot can give Hwei casting charges on his passive, and each spell he casts costs 1 charge. The max number of charges, or the charging time can scale with Hwei's level. The 2nd step spells are the ones with the cooldowns. So he can't cast 3 QQs together, but it's possible to throw QQ + QW + QE.
thet really is like asking why ziggs can't just throw a Q instead of a W. It would be a nightmare to balance.
TBH Hwei is really not complicated. Yes, he has 10 spells, but they're each very simple.
Passive makes enemies hit by 2 abilities explode in a small AoE for a bit of damage.
QQ is a line skillshot that deals a small AoE of damage when it hits something, QW is a long range ground AoE with execute damage, QE is a straight line that leaves a DoT and slow field
WQ is a straight line that gives allied champs move speed, WW is a ground AoE that gives allied champs shield, WE makes your next 3 instances of damage do a bit more and restore mana
EQ is a straight line that fears the first thing it hits, EW is a ground target that spawns an eye that roots the first thing it hits, EE is a ranged Sett E that doesn't stun
R is a skillshot that gives a champ a field that expands over the duration, dealing damage and slowing enemies within
Compared to, say, Briar where every ability is an entire novel and has 50 different micro-effects.
Briar passive makes her autos and abilities apply a bleed, the bleed stacks to 9, but each stack after the first only adds 25% more damage, also she heals herself for 25% of the damage, and if the target dies while bleeding she heals for 125% of the remaining bleed; also she gets up to 50% more healing from anything the lower her health gets.
Briar Q dashes to a target, deals damage, stuns them for 0.85 sec, shreds armor, and resets her auto timer.
Briar W dashes to target location, then if there's an enemy near the landing zone she gets a buff and a different W: the buff gives her true sight of the nearest enemy, ignore unit collision, bonus attack speed, bonus move speed, and her autos cleave, and the cleave can crit. While yes, it's a "frenzy" and she ignores any other targets, you can manually cancel it by just casting E.
During said buff, W changes into an ability that enhances her next auto with unstoppability, bonus range, bonus damage, heals her, and resets her auto timer.
Briar E channels for up to 1 sec, during which she has 40% damage reduction and heals a % of her max hp every 0.25 sec. Also while channeling, she is unstoppable and the channel cannot be interrupted by anything. At the end of the charge, she deals magic damage in the target direction and slows all enemies by 80%.
If it was fully channeled, units hit are also knocked back. If they are knocked back into terrain, they rebound off it, taking even more magic damage and are then stunned for 2 sec after.
Briar R has _double the range of Xerath ult,_ but functions similarly to a faster moving Vex ult. She fires a projectile in a direction, the projectile interrupts channels of any champ it hits and reveals them, cleanses Briar of all CC, has her unstoppably dash to the target, cause an explosion of damage around them, fear everything the explosion hits for 1.5 sec, causes the same buff as her W but with even more bonuses: she also gets bonus armor, mr, lifesteal, and even more move speed. Just like with W buff, she is "uncontrollable" but that can be ended at will by casting E.
Literally 75% of the random stuff in Briar's kit could (and should) be removed. There's no reason for her to get bonus healing from all sources, no reason for her to heal for 125% the remaining bleed on an enemy that dies while bleeding, no reason for her Q to stun, no reason for her berserk to end on E cast, no reason for berserk to give ghosting or true sight of the target or make her autos cleave, no reason for W2 to make her next auto unstoppable, no reason for her E to give her damage reduction, no reason for the E to be unstoppable, no reason for the knockback nor bonus magic damage on terrain nor the 2 sec stun at the end, no reason for her ult to be _double Xerath R range,_ no reason for R to disrupt channels, no reason for it to cleanse CC on Briar, no reason for it to do _both_ a huge damage explosion and a fear.
(same with K'sante and Bel'veth tbh, they also have a lot of unnecessary stuff randomly slotted in.)
“Can’t believe we are closer to season twenty than season four”
That fucked me up
Hwei is overcooked to be mega complicated because people think a lot more is "harder". As opposed to how it plays in gameplay. Somebody like Fiora/Riven are much more complicated/complex to play with "simpler" abilities or somebody like Akali/Katarina with actual multiple fast combo. Or having choose variants of your abilities like qiyana + decisions making in teamfights.
Hwei is more similar to someone like udyr were technically he has "A lot" of abilities but they are just variations were you should "choose" the better one for the situations. With the situation being clearly obvious and even if you are wrong you still get a min floor of effectiveness.
Like the video said you would just choose the most obvious/strongest ability most of the time. A lot of the abilities have a lot of overlap. For example if the xerath W clone is super powerful, you should just choose the CC ability most reliable in stunning them in place for landing it yourself. If it's hard to land the xerath W, then you would just throw up the fireball. If you need to clear the wave or it's even hard to land the fireball. Then you would just use the fissure to clear the wave and tick enemy for some part of the damage like vel'koz. The hard part of remembering button pushes combos and not playing the character.
Invoker is a skin deep comparison because all of invoker spells work completely different with wildly different usage and scenarios. Using some abilities over other is a true opportunity cost.
Your suggestion in the end is already kind of how it works, except the first key press is the effect and the second is the shape.
QQ, WQ and EQ are all in a straight line although WQ resembles WE more.
QW, WW and EW are all circles on the ground.
and E second cast is a wild card.
This is what happens when Hwei refused to listen to Jhins advise of only having 4 skills.
Molten fissure does regularly hit every minion of the wave for its entire duration though?
And it seems you are underestimating its use cases, which are zoning enemies, peeling(combined with eq and wq you are garenteed to escape as they will be feared and then slowed), and doing massive damage to enemies you can keep confined to it(like, for instance, jungle monsters and objectives)
Yeah, if you want the most damage out of a spell in a given instance, QE isnt going to be the best choice often. But what is the point of picking a control mage if you are going to only use their abilities to do damage and not control the battlefield? There are better choices for mages if you just want burst...
Its like when people pick Lux and then instantly detonate their e the whole game, even when they are actively trying to escape pursuit which would be stemied by leaving it as a slowing field. What are they doing?!
Also, WW has bad shield strength at base(90-170) and high scaling (+70% ap). But it has even worse of both for allies, being half(45-85+35% ap. For comparison, Sona's is 25-105+25% ap). And both values require 3 seconds inside it, so unless you have high ap and the allies are going to be a small area for a bit, 42.5+17.5%ap shielding is not going to be more useful than the tempo increase of wq. Thats barely covers a enchanter support auto...
I think he will fit in as a less volatile alternative to the other artillery mages, tradeing raw potential for reliability
Invoker has separate cooldown on all his abilities with 5 sec cooldown to switch between them. So just give Hwei 5 sec cooldown on the stance and separate cooldown for the actual abilities. That way he can throw out 3 mediocre abilities every 5 sec in stead of 3 mediocre abilities with long cooldown when other characters have 3 good abilities with long cooldown
THIS IS WHAT IM HOPING RIOT DOES. Having low cds would not only make his gameplay a lot more fun when mastered, it also exposes bad habits hwei players would make since having low cds mean they spam the same few abilities even more, creating a defined pattern to punish. This will also give incentive to reduce the damage/CC numbers to give him more definition as an ARSENAL mage like invoker was rather than just another artillery/control/Support mage.
Thats only when at the start, invoke goes down by 0.3 seconds every level, by 20 minutes you'd be level 15 or so so it's like 2.5 seconds. 25+ minutes you'll easily be level 20 it would be 0.7 seconds cooldown and if you have Aghanim's Scepter it goes down to 0.4 seconds.
from what I've seen from videos of people playing him mid there doesn't seem to be an ability from each group that out class the others. Maybe his w which can give mana back but it's mainly because it's the only really useful ability for a midlaner. His 3 Qs have a clear purpose and you'll almost never hesitate to use one or the other unlike what was said in the video his red trail ability is really good for clearing waves and pocking through minions but lack the raw damage of his QQ (the projectile) so trail for wave clear and pocking and QQ for killing or trading, the execute is just that a finisher it's not meant to be used when the enemy isn't low or stuned. It's the same for his E abilities, the fear is a great get off me tool, the eye is a long root that works really well with your execute and the last one is the easiest to land and can hit several targets and it isn't blocked by minions either.
Really nice cuts on the overlapping ability's! The Braum and the Senna one were sooo clean!
In short what Vars says Riot should do to make Hwei a good champion is "Remove 75% of all his abilities and just take all the creativity of an artist motif away." Even if he's bad I'll play him. I like him and I feel represented by him. I'm just happy he's releasing!
I think he will be similar to karma and Oriana. you have to choose between damage or support at any given moment
interesting perspective, congrats on 200k!
I'm so glad that you came to the same conclusions as I did about him. In my vid on hwei vs invoker, I was saying just how bland hwei felt to play because of how you get locked out of abilities when using some, like... it's like if you play Nidalee and if you use cat q you lose human q... it would feel really trash to play!
I absolutely agree that he might devolve into a "optimal 5-6" ability champion in a team fight, where he just seems to lose a third of his kit due to it being sub-optimal. I wish it was like Invoker, where the sub-abilities have the cooldowns, and not the paints. That would reward choosing the right spell for the situation, but then when the situation changes you don't feel like shit for now not having access to the right spell anymore. Invoker has very long cooldowns on all his spells, but a near instant access to each spell independently in the lategame. The spells are ALSO weaker than other heroes, since he has 10... but HE HAS ACCESS TO ALL 10. Hwei is weaker due to having 10, but only has access to 3+ult at any time. It's weird, and feels bad.
he's like a generic invoker with recycled abilities, that's specially sad because he had so much potential, anyway i didnt expected much from Riot designs to begin with
If he didn't have shared cooldowns then people would be complaining like "ZOMNG RITO NOTHER 200 YEARS CHAMPION HAS 20 DIFFERENT ABILITIES AND JUST NEEDS TO BUILD MANA TO SPAM"
@@floofzykitty5072 people were already complaining that he has 10 abilities. Istg league players will just whine any time a champion is more complex than darius
it doesnt matter if they make hweis abilities suck, because hes a new champ riot is just gonna crank the everliving shit out of his numbers until he becomes op/strong like every new release instead of making the abilities work differently
I think the biggest disappointment, and also the reason the novelty will wear off, is that the theme ultimately doesn't work. You have a character that's supposedly "The Visonary", yet all he does is "stuff everyone else does". You're not playing as a cool magic artist who creates spells on the fly from pure creation, you're a walking plagiarism machine that just does worse versions of what everyone else can do...
Does anyone know the channel Vars mentioned at the beginning? The "brazilian morris?" help please ^^
I think they gave him 9 abilities cuz of who he is. He is supposed to weave in spells, mix them which somehow forces you to be creative, which is kinda in line with who he is as a champion in Lore. But yes, the only way to tone him down is to make his skill deal either low or high conditional damage. To me he is more of a....Lore champion, a champion which is heavily defined by his lore and identity. And yes, I think Aphelios is a bit more complicated than Hwei? But not really. Aphelios cannot choose his weapons, u have to make use of what u currently have and be creative about it, whilst Hwei, as Vars said, has access to all of his abilities, meaning at any given moment, u can think of which spell you can weave, whether you're going for poke, sustain, 1v1 dance, team damage, or execution. He is indeed an interesting champ which might have a difficult time fitting in. ALSO if you notice the wheel behind him, it changes color depending on your current spellbook, but then u have wash brush, which maybe some can make use of to somehow take advantage of how your opponent will react to the color you have:) .Nice analysis on him 😀
In my experience, QE is far better for fast pushing than QQ. The hitbox is large enough to reliably hit the entire wave, especially if you also toss an EE on it to suck the minions in, while QQ requires you to be standing directly in the middle of all the minions to hit them all, which is not at all feasible in a normal laning scenario.
Yeah idk where this guy's getting the idea that QE isn't the best for waveclear when it so obviously is
No Identity? You said it yourself, he's the mage with the most skills in game. It means, he's one of the most versatile heroes in game. He's a mash up of 3 types of mage. CC mage, Artillery Mage, and Support Mage. Kinda like a Lux, Karma and Xerath combined. Heroes like Hwei do not have a particularly strong ability because he make it up for versatility instead. Xerath/Syndra/ Ziggs have better harass/range? But he can roam better, and buff his allies. Karma's poke and protect are better? He can waveclear better. Sona/Seraphine's shields are better? He has more range and can harrass/poke better. Leona/Blitzcranck/Nautilus have better CC? He can harass from a long distance.What he lacks vs dedicated champs, he make up to things they can't do instead. That's the advantage of a hero that can do a lot of things. Oh and his Ult is a Slow. Having a 5 man slow on a mage with linear and AOE skill means he can combo easier.
For me, hwei doesn't seem nearly as complex or hard to learn as aphelios, because while he has 10 abilities, the abilities itself are pretty simple and because his q w and e all have distinct purposes that apply to all three of their versions, hes easy to understand
Honestly I really love his design. I'd much rather have a champ with 10 abilities where one ability is a line or two of text. Then to have a champion where one ability is like a whole kit of another champion and you gotta read an essay just to figure out what q does.
I like the simplicity of the abilities. I think that very refreshing after all these 200 year releases recently
I think a better way to design him would be to give him a set number of charges for all his abilities, he can use whichever ability he wants but that takes up a charge, and once he runs out of charges he cant use any ability until a charge refreshes
he feels like Ahri with the jack of all trades master of none which I really love, i'm super excited to add him to my roster
I have to say, im a bit worryied Hwei will have old Udyr's syndrome, where, each "stance" will get buffed/nerfed separately, thus, making only one playstyle at a time viable.
i think that his abilities are quite simple and monodimensional, but i think it's a good thing, i also would like to point out that his abilities have more sinergy than you consider, for example QW with EW, or EE can be used to keep enemies on your QE or R. the example you made about always using QQ is a bit shaky to me because QE is actually a great tool for dealing a lot of damage in an area, for zoning or to create distance while damaging.
I personally do not think he has a low skill ceiling, and he is more useful than other artillery mages in teamfights.
These are my impression right now but i guess we should just wait and see how he performs.
My favorite part was how people kept comparing him to Invoker, failing to see that under the surface, his kit is extremely basic and doesn't even come mildly close to what Invoker asks of the player. There's nothing to think about vast majority of the time.
11:54 Fizz ult?
Hwei is awesome. Not sure what you smoking
In response to use case of the abilities: QE is your teamfight spell, It has the largest AEO of all of his Qs and slows, I can see support Hwei using this ability almost every time. EE is part of Hwei's wave clear combo it can hit every minion, and then pulls them close enough that QQ can hit all of them. Additionally, the EE gains more value if you cased QE as you can pull champs into the center of the slow zone.
“It’s Ironic isn’t it, when granted everything, you can’t do anything”.
-Gojo Satoru
Invoker: hold my beer
11:05 you know you watch a youtuber a lot when you can recognize their gameplay clip in another youtuber's video
i watched that video already
I was surprised about how easy he was to pick up, like his skill floor is low but idk about the skill ceiling
I really like hweis kit, 100% saving my motes for him
Shoutout to Healsnshields for the insanely clean editing on the ability comparisons.
amazing editing, god job!
It makes sense that Hwei's abilities mimics other champions because he's an artist painting what he sees
Honestly, his kit reminds me of the mechanics of ffxiv Ninja class. Where you combo different ninjutsu/buttons for different ability results.
Really feels like the ult should've been built around multi-dipping the same stances - like a set attack per stance that wipes the brush clean & resets any stances on CD, or picks up colours present in the environment to force enter that stance again? Feels like that would actually bring in depth to his combo game?
That clicking sound in the back of the video threw me off so hard because I listened while driving and thought it was my blinker for so long 💀
Aphelios and Jhin had a son
Huh. Some time ago, I had a similar idea. It came from a thought how a minion feels surrounded by all those superpowered entities. It evolved to an idea of a veteran mercenery who, instead of overwhelming power, adapts to the situation. He'd had 3 forms: spear (diver), axe and shield (tank/bruiser), and 3rd one I couldn't decide on (crossbow for adc, hammer for cc and area control and few other ideas based on the idea of experienced medieval combatant). The way he'd changed abilities would function similar to Corki package. Every X minutes 2 weapon racks would appear with weapons you are currently not using, and you could change your class. Each form would have separate equipment and separate gold spending (you've used spear earned 1000g and spent it on spear, then you switch to axe and have that 1000g back to spend on different set of items so you wouldn't lag behind). So basically, a champion who could change a role if the situation required it, but unlike Hwei, he would be fully dedicated until his armoury respawned.
I love playing Aphelios, learning what he does and combos to make came pretty quick for me. I’ve play him in the mid lane sometimes because he plays more like an AD mage as much as a bot lane marksman. Seeing Hwei basically being an AP Aphelios is going to be awesome to try out
Invoker succeeds by having builds you choose by leveling certain abilities of his, letting them all be as powerful as they should. Hwei fails to mimic invokers design
good points, i do agree it would make more sense to have his kit setup to do one thing. e.g(all dmg in one rotation or all cc in one rotation) but i dont think hes gonna be weak... feel like hes gonna be rewarding to someone who masters him. he will probably be weak for new ppl so hopefully they dont buff him prematurely
The big thing with Hwei is that it feels like while they are trying to make Invoker, they made his spells have a bit too much overlap as to cause the reason why you think many people will just use 2 spells in each grouping at most. Comparing it to Invoker then, where if a situation occurs depending on your chosen desire to engage (attack or run away or support or etc.) with it you have only a single *correct* choice, even if the spells are also fundamentally pretty simple, whereas Hwei often has situations where 2 or 3 spells within the same category would achieve the same result.
Correction he's not an artillery he's an arsenal mage 1:17
Once we go to the next SDS story I’m curious on how Fairies and Giants are going to survive
I love having so many options in a character, feels like a fighting game
9:19 here, Vars says that Hwei’s weakness is what makes him a strong champion in my opinion. I see and know what you are saying, that being, Jacks of all Traits are not the best in this game due to minmaxing being so strong. However, his variety is what makes him reliable. He’s the kind of champion who always can perform above 100% because of the different things he can do. His damage, as of now, is very strong, even though it is backloaded. His support capabilities are quite strong, because his peel doesn’t just come from his E and his shield is actually massive. Hwei is a sort of champion that does 75% of an artillery mage, 90% of a burst mage, 30% of an enchanter, and 50% of a peelbot. This can all be done at once too and he won’t have to sacrifice much out of one job to complete the other because it’s combined in a lot of overlapping ways.
I agree with all that Vars is saying but I agree to disagree that it is what will be Hwei’s downfall. There hasn’t been a single game in which I completely neglected to use one of his unique abilities.
Molten fissure just being rumble's ult is wild to me
I think a much better way to give him more freedom would've been to give the second cast the cooldown rather than the first. This way if he wanted to spam damage he could, same with cc or utility. This would let him fully dip into all 3 aspects of his character while having more risk/reward because spamming one of the 3 at once would leave you without the other. Example he would use QQ but that would put WQ and EQ on cooldown instead of all of the QW and QE
That could work but makes less sense with him "dipping his brush" in a spell type then painting a spell
but why would it be BETTER? Right now he's a fairly simple champion with straightforward abilities Q=damage W=utility E=CC, kinda like Lux, or Morgana. Now imagine how it would feel if morgana could cast three pools at the same time or stun you for 6seconds with three bindings.
+there's a magic to have them separated. Now Q doen't have to be as strong as E or W. they only have to balance 3 abilities to be similar three times, rather than balancing all 9
@@hondragaming593 Just look at invoker and see how it would be better
@@hondragaming593 I imagine such a champion would be hell to play against. If every ability was a source of CC or unlimited support or all damage. There are reasons champion's abilities aren't all the same thing.
@@justacryptid4687yes, that's exactly my point.
Vars, if you had to choose 5 characters for the rework, what characters would you choose?
Look what they did to my boy Invoker ;-;
Hwei's kit is more designed to situational moments rather than braindead nuke.
QQ: Laning phase poke
QW: Someone landed a hard CC
QE: You are being chased in the jungle by the entire enemy team
WQ: You must escape or chase
WW: Teamfight; DoT sustain; mitigate a predictable source of damage (I.E. Cait's ult)
WE: You are low on mana or you are sure you are going to hit your next abilities and want more damage. That or you are snowballing
EQ: Someone is chasing you and you want to escape.
EW: You want to zone out someone or check a bush
EE: Teamfight
As you said, if you want to play an enchanter you'd better play Sona, but Sona doesn't have hard CC without her R, nor she has long range artillery damage. And the same can be said for all the other champions. He is not broken, but not as useless as it might seem. I think he should deal more damage thou
His main strength is that he has answers to many different situations.
Unlike many other champions, he doesn't have to do with second best option, he can choose one that fits his current need the most.
And tbh he only lacks a blink/dash and invisibility.