E - Subject: Torment

• Cooldown: 15/14/13/12/11 seconds ⇒ 12/11.5/11/10.5/10 seconds

EQ - Grim Visage

• Flee Duration: 1 second at all ranks ⇒ 1/1.125/1.25/1.375/1.5 seconds

Stormsurge

• Ability Power: 100 ⇒ 90
• Passive - Squall Damage: 100-200 (+30% AP) (melee) / 75-150 (+22.5% AP) (ranged) ⇒ 100-200 (+20% AP) (melee) / 75-150 (+15% AP) (ranged)

Horizon Focus

• Passive - Hypershot and Focus Range Requirement: 700 ⇒ 600
• Passive - Focus AoE Reveal Radius: 1200 units ⇒ 1400 units

Overall late game buffs for Hwei. Stormsurge is still a good item, but I would personally switch it for the newly buffed Horizon Focus.

Try to use EQ Grim Visage as much as possible after level 12-13 since the new flee duration is incredibly strong for Hwei.

New shard rune changes mean people will usually have less MR meaning items with Flat MR Pen even more appealing now.

Lost Chapter is the mandatory first item you have to buy, meaning you don't really have many options to build after it. It depends on the game what you're gonna build for the first item:
Luden's Companion against squishies and your most often bought item.
Seraph's Embrace if you're trying to play control mage or you are scared of an assassin.
Malignance is an item I haven't found much success with and I've heard mixed things about it. You can build it if you like it.

Assassin Mage Build
Stormsurge is a pretty good item even after the nerfs.

Horizon Focus is an incredibly good item on Hwei especially with the recent buffs. You can swap Stormsurge with it.

Shadowflame's passive allows your QW Severing Bolt or Stormsurge's passive to crit doing more damage. Isn't really recommended when trying to play more of a control mage playstyle.

Rabadon's Deathcap classic item, can switch it with Void Staff that is way cheaper, and in certain scenarios means you will have the same or more damage for 400 less gold and a bit of a better build path.

Banshee's Veil looks like an extremely powerful item, but its build path is horrendous. Build it if for some reason you really need it or you're snowballing hard.

Dark Seal/ Mejai's Soulstealer is the classic snowballing item that can make or break your early game. Getting to Stormsurge/ Horizon Focus quickly is extremely important and getting Dark Seal and then not being able to do with it a lot can hurt your transition to mid game really badly. This is the period when you can recover and get a lead or snowball even more, so Dark Seal is a gamble you will have to decide if it's worth it.

Control/Anti Tank&Fighters Mage Build
Ionian Boots of Lucidity lets you have your summoner spells more quickly together with Cosmic Insight, and lets you use more abilities in fights. Flat Pen against tanks and bruisers is less useful than supporting your team in killing them.

Cosmic Drive is a really good item that allows you to move around in a fight a lot making it easier to survive and constantly applying status effects and CC on the enemy team.

Liandry's Torment is right now not the best item. Would be great if you could build Lost Chapter into it. It is still a necessary item against tanks and bruisers.

Rylai's Crystal Scepter means you can apply your slow on more people with QE Molten Fissure, EE Crushing Maw, or R Spiraling Despair

Morellonomicon can let you apply Grievous Wounds on multiple enemies with one cast of QE Molten Fissure, EE Crushing Maw, or R Spiraling Despair.

Assassin Mage Runes:

First Strike

Great rune for this playstyle letting you have better bursts while providing you gold letting you snowball better.

Magical Footwear

lets you focus on building your first 2 items saving you 300 gold. Additionaly the 10 movespeed bonus lets you move around the map more quickly.

Biscuit Delivery

is almost mandatory. This lets you go through the laning phase more comfortably and lets you have enough mana to QE Molten Fissure + EE Crushing Maw the wave to get bot prio or a good recall.

Cosmic Insight

Summoner spell CDR and Item CDR is always great. Having a shorter CD on and let's use them more aggressively with a shorter window of not being catched without them. Item CDR helps with Stormsurge, Horizon Focus, Luden's Companion and Seraph's Embrace.

Manaflow Band

just like the is a mandatory rune. Try to get a stack before minions spawn with QW Severing Bolt on the enemy's river brush.

Gathering Storm

you get extremely strong lategame and this lets you scale better. Most games in the elo last long enough for the rune to outshine the other options. Scorch doesn't let you harass under tower or dive as easily since you get tower aggro and Absolute Focus is outshined after 20th minute.

Safe/Control Mage Runes:

A more reliable option

Arcane Comet

Great rune for this playstyle having overall more dmg than First Strike. Hitting an enemy with QE Molten Fissure won't waste your rune when trying to waveclear.

Manaflow Band

just like the is a mandatory rune. Try to get a stack before minions spawn with QW Severing Bolt on the enemies' river brush.

Transcendence

gives your CDR meaning you will be able to apply more Subject: Torment and Subject: Serenity abilities helping your team. This also mens that you will be applying your item effects more oftenly.

Gathering Storm

Magical Footwear

Biscuit Delivery

Shards:
For the Offense Slot you should pick Attack Speed as it helps a lot with csing, you can always pick Adaptive Force if you prefer the AP. Pick Adaptive Force if you're playing as a Supp.
For the Flex Slot pick the Adaptive Force shard or the Movement Speed shard on your preference.
For the Defense Slot you should pick the Flat Health shard if the enemy botlane run an aggressive engage comp, otherwise pick the Health Scaling shard.

| Signature of the Visionary | Effect Radius:285 | Hwei's damaging abilities mark enemies hit for 4 seconds. Damaging them with a different ability consumes the mark to create an explosion beneath them, dealing bonus magic damage to enemies in the area after 0.85 seconds. The mark can be used against clones like LeBlanc and Shaco.

| Subject: Disaster | Cost: 80 / 90 / 100 / 110 / 120 Mana | Cooldown: 10 / 9 / 8 / 7 / 6|

| QQ Devastating Fire | Range: 800 | Effect Radius: 200| Cast Time: 0.25 | This is Hwei's main form of damage and also has the shortest cast time of his Disaster spells. You want to use it whenever the enemy laner walks in range or close to minions. It is easy to dodge so when chasing someone try to make them dance around and use your CC before hitting QQ.

| QW Severing Bolt | Target Range: 1900 | Effect Radius: 225| Cast Time: 0.5 | Hwei's QW Severing Bolt has a built in execute that does increased damage based on the target's missing health, whenever it hits only one enemy or immobilized enemies. Great spell and you should always look for people that are low in a fight or in the middle of a Recall to execute them. You can also use it while going to lane for some damage. Also great to use against enemies that have ults that force them to stay in one place: Jhin, Miss Fortune, Caitlyn, Xerath, Vel'Koz, Ezreal and Karthus. Playing Hwei with a locked camera will greatly hinder your ability since his QW Severing Bolt is extremely powerful and versatile.

| QE Molten Fissure | Range: 1200 | Effect Radius: 225| Cast Time: 0.35 | Hwei's QE Molten Fissure is an amazing tool to clear waves quickly together with EE Crushing Maw allowing you to either crash the wave and recall or move around the map. Always use it after the laning phase on the minions to be able to move to objectives or fights, or catch someone. It is also great in fights to proc your passive Signature of the Visionary together with your EE Crushing Maw on multiple people. In certain situations you can use it in the same direction you would use your WQ Fleeting Current in order to create a path that slows enemies chasing you while speeding you up at the same time.

| Subject: Serenity | Cost: 90 / 95 / 100 / 105 / 110 Mana | Cooldown: 18 / 17.5 / 17 / 16.5 / 16|

| WQ Fleeting Current | Range: 1200 | Cast Time: 0.25 | Hwei's WQ Fleeting Current is an extremely undervalued ability. The movespeed may not seem much but it allows you and your teammates to rellocate swiftly around the map. It is the spell that allows Hwei to quickly put pressure around the map. Use it with QW Severing Bolt when chasing someone. Always use it when leaving out of fountain. Late game you want to be casting it constantly especially if you're fed since WE Stirring Lights won't be needed to two-shot a squishy. Also, the movespeed scales well with AP so it will be even stronger late game.

| WW Pool of Reflection | Target Range: 650 | Effect Radius: 350 | Cast Time: 0.35 | Hwei's WW Pool of Reflection is the most underwhelming ability in his kit in my opinion. It is clearly outshined by the other two abilities, and forcing you and your teammates to stay in one place is often a big mistake. You want to use it mainly when you are taking down Baron or saving yourself or someone else from DOTS/ignite. You can also use it if your other abilities are on CD, and you're behind a wall not being able to help your teammates in the fight, so the shield can help them. A niche use is to save it and ping it when you know that enemy Karthus is gonna use his R Requiem.

| WE Stirring Lights || Cast Time: NONE | Hwei's WE Stirring Lights is a great tool for restoring your mana and helping early game csing. Since you are a mage the enemy adc will always have wave prio at the beginning of the laning phase making it really hard in a lot of situations to cs. When using it on minions and the enemy ADC looks to trade you can take it and proc the passive Signature of the Visionary later.

| Subject: Torment | Cost: 50 / 55 / 60 / 65 / 70 Mana | Cooldown: 12 / 11.5 / 11 / 10.5 / 10|

| EQ Grim Visage | Range: 1100 |Fear Duration: 1 / 1.125 / 1.25 / 1.375 / 1.5| Cast Time: 0.25 | Hwei's EQ Grim Visage is your best CC ability, but also unreliable to hit in most situations if they are not walking straight towards you. It is amazing against assassins or fighters trying to run you down. Especially great against Zed's Death Mark (ult) or Zac's Elastic Slingshot (E) and in general engage supports. Also your best ability when you are being ganged.With the new buffs you will want to use it as much as possible late game rather than being safe with EE Crushing Maw since the fear duration is kinda OP at later levels.

| EW Gaze of the Abyss | Target Range: 900 | Root Duration: 1.2 / 1.4 / 1.6 / 1.8 / 2| Cast Time: 0.25 | Hwei's EW Gaze of the Abyss is a great zoning tool. Usually very hard to hit in a fight and has a short range, but placing it under tower or choke points toward objectives makes it an amazing zoning tool. You can also use it to get vision on a bush instead of face checking when warding. Using it under anyone in a Statis effect like Zhonya's Hourglass allows you to walk away and use your QE Severing Bolt to finish off the target rather than waiting for them. You can use it the same way when someone uses Teleport. Together with QE Molten Fissure they allow you to have great control over objectives. You can use this ability to place it on yourself or an objective to catch an invisible enemy trying to kill you or smite Drake/Baron like Talon, Evelynn and Twitch.

| EE Crushing Maw | Target Range: 800 | Cast Time: 0.35 | Hwei's EE Crushing Maw is his easiest to hit CC. It doesn't have the hard CC component (stun or root) of his other abilities but is the most secure way of CCing someone to hit another damaging abilty and proc your passive Signature of the Visionary. A great trick that most ADCs and SUPPs in this elo don't respect is to QE Molten Fissure the minions and then EE Crushing Maw the enemy into it allowing you to instantly proc your passive Signature of the Visionary while also clearing out the caster minions or the whole wave. This is especially great with Arcane Comet or Liandry's Torment. Note that this ability has a larger cast time than EQ Grim Visage

| R Spiraling Despair | Range: 1340 | Effect Radius: 500 | Cast Time: 0.25 | Hwei's R Spiraling Despair is a long-distance slowing projectile that is extremely easy to miss. Always try to use it after you've CCed the enemy. It is an incredible slow allowing you to easily hit your QE Severing Bolt without the enemy having any counterplay. Always, always try to use your QE Severing Bolt on an ulted target since you will be surprised how often you won't reach lethal damage with your combo. Your R Spiraling Despair is a great ability for objective control combined with the EE Crushing Maw + QE Molten Fissure combo on the grouped up enemies. Hitting this combo on multiple enemies almost always means that they have now lost the objective or can't take it anymore. You can also use it on grouped up enemies that are rotating around the jungle.

So with all the abilities explained now it's time to see how to use them in-game. This playstyle is super aggressive. You want to punish as many of the enemies' mistakes as possible. Having a two-ability combo means you can easily and quickly punish someone trying to take a ward/overextending or trying to trade with you in laning phase. Almost never let an enemy support ward a river bush.

Even as an APC Bot try to roam as much as possible, your wave clearing combo and your WQ Fleeting Current allow you to be able to roam around the map a lot while not missing out on a lot of creeps.

Having a support item allows you to ward for yourself (double supp item), meaning you can take riskier positions in bushes to deal a lot of damage to people moving around the map. When your team is doing an objective or is preparing for one you can take an aggressive position in the enemy's jungle and wait for them to come (of course you want to clear out their vision) to combo them and use WQ Fleeting Current to run away. This often makes the enemy weak enough to not be able to contest an objective.

This aggressive playstyle focuses on abusing low elo's mistakes of not respecting you and being too relaxed in games. That's why you want to use Ghost since you can use it early together with your WQ Fleeting Current to quickly get to a fight, someone who is out of position or someone who is low/recalling and doesn't think about or respect your QW Severing Bolt.

The way to make this champ look OP is to capitalize on the enemy's mistakes and snowball hard into the game.


Another basic thing to know is that in a losing matchup or enemy bot zoning you out of the wave you want to use your waveclear combo. This way you should always try to have prio for Drake or Scuttle Crab fights. Having such an easy way to get bot prio so easily and being able to poke enemy bot are one of the best things about Hwei's otherwise lacking early game.


In this guide you may have noticed that we're getting a lot of things early game - Manaflow Band and Biscuit Delivery into first buy Lost Chapter. Everything said before shows that you want to use any amount of mana needed to get bot prio when needed and be able to roam without worrying about mana all the time. You want to be able to output abilities whenever you need those abilities. Getting early bot prio and lead allows you to more easily buy your early item powerspikes and snowball the game.

Playing Hwei Support or ADC can make your team tilt or the one you're gonna lane with. Having a Duo helps a lot with Hwei since you can skip that and him having 10 abilities makes it harder for the ally to know what you want to do. You have extremely long cooldowns on your W and E so you can tell your ally when you can't do anything until your abilities come off CD.


I'm playing with my GF and we haven't experimented much on the picks we can play, but ADC Hwei together with Supp Leona has found us over 80% win rate on this duo. The idea is that you do want to have a support that can peel for you and protect you, but most CC supports have a couple flaws - having a quick combo for short trades, meaning they can't always wait for you to hit your second combo. Another problem is their CC moving the target. This hurts Hwei a lot since a lot of his abilities - QQ Devastating Fire, QW Severing Bolt, EQ Grim Visage and most importantly his R Spiraling Despair not having the biggest projectiles meaning supports like Thresh can move the target away from one of your abilities with his E Flay. Also having Ghost, WQ Fleeting Current and QW Severing Bolt in your kit means you don't need to have someone pull a target towards you to reach them. Leona has 3 abilities that can force the enemy to stay in one place, meaning you can go back and have her go and CC the enemy, allowing you to easily hit WE Stirring Lights + QW Severing Bolt. Leona's tankiness and W can let her do that more safely without worrying about being deleted while trying to set up the enemy for your long-range combo.

Leona overall may look like an unorthodox duo for Hwei, but when you both get the hang of it, it starts working like wonders.


Other champions that can work in a similar way are Pantheon, Bard and Alistar.


And if you're playing as a SUPP you want ADC's that can help you harass the enemy botlane. ADCS that can help harass under enemy tower are amazing together with your EW Gaze of the Abyss.

In general, Hwei is a new champ and people are still figuring him out. There are many different playstyles and opinions on this champ with this guide being my perspective on it.

If you're looking to improve or learn this champ you should definitely look at streamers like Nemesis or Azzap play him, or look at random Chinese challengers. You should try to experiment with items and builds. Having 10 abilities means you can build around them and cater to your own playstyle.

For Botlane Hwei having a duo is really important and you can always experiment and try out different combinations of champions to see what works.

I think this is a champ that is very versatile and can be played in many different ways so try to have fun exploring him in your own way.

I hope this guide has taught you or has shown you some new things about this champion and has given you a general understanding of one of some of the many ways you can play him.

I wish you good luck in finding success and enjoyment with him on Summoner's rift.