The new champion Vex has made her appearance in the League of Legends battlefield after the 11.19 update and quickly attracted gamers to experience her. Even professional players couldn’t resist, with Rookie commenting on Vex right on his stream channel. Specifically, the mid-laner of Invictus Gaming stated that Vex is so easy that she can be played with just one hand.
Perhaps it is because she is so easy to play and possesses a powerful skill set, good damage, and strong counters to agile champions, that Vex, in less than 2 days since her release, achieved a win rate of up to 50%. According to the League of Legends community assessment, this might be the strongest name ever released in modern League of Legends compared to others, especially those champions referred to as “200 years of Riot’s experience” like Viego (only 42% win rate after the first day) or Gwen (also 42% in a similar timeframe). Only Dr. Mundo had a win rate above 50%, but that was after this reworked champion had been out for a week.
Immediately, Riot had to announce a hotfix for this champion just after nearly 2 days of her release. Of course, this is a quite significant nerf to Vex after she demonstrated her overwhelming power and exceeded Riot’s expectations: her passive damage was reduced from 30 – 180 (+25% AP) to 30 – 140 (+20% AP) and her Q – Doom Wave damage was reduced from 60/110/160/210/260 (+60% AP) to 60/105/150/195/240 (+60% AP).
With the significant power reduction from her passive Gloom and Q ability, Riot hopes to balance Vex’s power and reduce her win rate to a manageable level. Because a champion that is both powerful and easy to play like Vex, if involved in professional matches or high-ranked games, would pose a significant danger to Riot’s goal of creating a balanced game, especially with Worlds approaching and Vex likely to be included. If she continues to be banned repeatedly, this would further deviate from the direction that the “father” of League of Legends intends for his new champions.