A few days ago, Riot Games astonished the League of Legends community by introducing a new champion named Hwei. What surprised LoL players was the complexity that Hwei possesses, as this champion has up to 10 skills with incredibly powerful effects. Many players have compared Hwei to Aphelios, asserting that this is a type of champion that cannot be balanced.
However, according to Riot August, the lead designer for League of Legends, Hwei actually once had a skill that was stronger than the official version. This skill was conceptualized and tested by Riot August while assisting Riot Emizery in the design process of Hwei. After a period of testing, the skill was removed due to being too unbalanced.
“At that time, Emizery had asked me to design a skill for Hwei to test. In the end, it was removed because it was too unbalanced and had many issues. Basically, that skill would allow Hwei to draw a cloud that created rain above, making this character look ‘depressed.’ Allies and Hwei standing under this cloud would become invisible, even to turrets, and they could easily take down opponents,” Riot August shared.
For those who are familiar with League of Legends, players surely remember the ‘invisibility even with turrets’ effect that Riot August mentioned. This effect was once present in Akali’s Smoke Bomb skill after her rework, making her character too strong. Shortly after being reworked, this effect was removed from Akali’s skill set.
The more frightening aspect of Hwei is that this skill could apply to allied champions as well, rather than just Akali herself. As Riot August shared, that skill would allow Hwei and his teammates to take down opponents far too easily by gaining a significant advantage in surprise. Perhaps this is why Riot decided to remove the aforementioned skill and replaced it with a weaker version that provides a shield buff for both Hwei and allies with the W – W skill.
Through Riot August’s sharing, LoL players can see that the team at Riot Games is not lacking in creative ideas when designing new champions. Fortunately, they have the necessary restraint to eliminate overly unbalanced ideas before officially launching the new character. We hope that Hwei will not fall into the same unbalanced situation as some of Riot’s recent champions upon his official release.