Follow TV Tropes

Following

Characters / League of Legends: V-W

Go To


This page contains all champions beginning with the letters V to W.


    open/close all folders 

    Varus, the Arrow of Retribution 

Varus, Valmar, and Kai

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/varusloadscreen.png
"The guilty will know agony."

Voiced by: Gavin Hammon (English), Fernando de Luis (European Spanish), Oliver Magaña (Mexican Spanish), Fuminori Komatsu (Japanese), Paulo Vignolo (Brazilian Portuguese), Yeong-Jae Pyo (Korean), Vladimir Antonik (Russian)
Appears in: Legends of Runeterra

"You didn’t destroy us all. And that mistake will be your undoing."

One of the ancient Darkin, Varus was a deadly killer who loved to torment his foes, driving them almost to insanity before delivering the killing arrow. He was imprisoned at the end of the Great Darkin War, but escaped centuries later in the remade flesh of two Ionian hunters—they had unwittingly released him, cursed to bear the bow containing his bound essence. Varus now seeks out those who trapped him, in order to enact his brutal vengeance, but the mortal souls within still resist him every step of the way.
——
Varus is a Marksman/Artillery Mage hybrid champion with strong poke, crowd-control and sustained damage, as long as he can land both abilities and basic attacks on his enemies.
  • His passive, Living Vengeance, increases Varus' attack speed for a few seconds when he kills a minion or monster, and double that bonus if he kills or helps kill an enemy champion.
  • With his first ability, Piercing Arrow, Varus starts charging-up an arrow for a few seconds, moving at reduced speed. When the ability is reactivated he fires a powerful arrow in a target direction that damages enemies in its path, with the range and damage of the arrow increasing the longer he charged it.
  • His second ability, Blighted Quiver, passively makes Varus' basic attacks deal bonus damage and briefly apply Blight to his target, stacking up to three times. Varus' other abilities consume all stacks of Blight on enemies they hit, dealing damage based on the target's max health and reducing his basic abilities' cooldowns for each stack consumed. In addition, Blighted Quiver can be activated to enhance Varus' next Piercing Arrow, causing it to deal bonus damage to enemies it hits based on their missing health.
  • With his third ability, Hail of Arrows, Varus fires a volley of arrows at a target location, damaging enemies inside and cursing the ground there for a few seconds, slowing and reducing healing on enemies inside it.
  • His ultimate ability, Chain of Corruption, flings a black tendril in a target direction, damaging, immobilizing and applying three Blight stacks to the first enemy champion it hits. The tendril then spreads to nearby unnaffected enemy champions, applying the same effects to them and continuing to spread until it runs out of targets.

Varus' alternate skins include Blight Crystal Varus, Arclight Varus, Arctic Ops Varus, Heartseeker Varus, Swiftbolt Varus, Dark Star Varus, Conqueror Varus, Infernal Varus, Cosmic Hunter Varus, PROJECT: Varus, High Noon Varus, Snow Moon Varus, and Empyrean Varus.

In season 1 of Teamfight Tactics, Varus is a Tier 2 Demon Ranger. His Piercing Arrow ability is a charged shot that damages all enemies in a straight line. In season 2 he changed to using his Infernal Varus skin and his origin was changed from Demon to Infernal, but he was otherwise unchanged. He was removed in season 3. He returns in season 5 using his Arclight Varus skin as a Tier 2 Redeemed Ranger. His ability was changed to Holy Arrows, which blankets the area around his target in arrows; enemies are dealt a percentage of his attack damage, while Varus and all allies hit deal bonus magic damage with their basic attacks for a few seconds. He was removed in season 6, returning in season 7 using his Cosmic Hunter Varus skin as a Tier 3 Astral Swiftshot. His new ability, Chain of Constellations, fires a tendril that deals bonus percent attack damage to the first enemy hit and stuns them for a few seconds, and spreads to three nearby enemies shortly after dealing flat magic damage and also stunning them for the remaining duration.

In Legends of Runeterra, Varus is a 4-mana 3/4 Runeterra Darkin Champion with Quick Attack that Auto-Equips The Darkin Bow (2-mana 0/0 Equipment that gains +1 Power each time you play a spell or equip an ally, to a maximum of +5 Power, lasting until the next time the wielder strikes). Once you have targeted allies 7+ times Varus levels up, gaining +1/+1 and Overwhelm and passively doubling The Darkin Bow's power gain and power cap while in play.
His Origin is The Arrow of Retribution, which allows the player to include any Cultist card in their deck and automatically draws a copy of Varus once 3+ Cultist spells have been cast. His Champion Spell is Varus' Chain of Corruption (3-mana Burst spell that gives an enemy Vulnerable and an ally +1 Power, then creates a Fleeting copy of itself in hand).
  • Act of True Love: Valmar could not live without Kai and sacrificed everything to save him, even joining him in the Pit of Pallas.
  • And I Must Scream: Kai and Valmar are still fully conscious inside their new form, often helpless to stop Varus from his wanton slaughter.
  • The Artifact: His Darkin nature was a retcon, so his name and general appearance don't quite fit the aesthetic established by Aatrox and Rhaast. Aatrox even pokes fun at the fact that his name lacks the double-A that other Darkin use.
  • Badass Family: He pronounces 'Darkin' as 'dark kin' and calls his fellows "brother" and "sister," as if trying to rebuild some family connnection.
  • Battle Couple: Valmar and Kai battled the Noxian invasion together.
  • Boring, but Practical: One of the most efficient methods to play an ADC is to front to back the enemy team (kill the closest enemy while hiding behind your frontline), rather than trying to make flashy plays. No ADC is better at this than Varus, with his CC, percent health damage, and high attack speed meaning that while he wont get a highlight reel, he will win you the game.
  • BSoD Song: As We Fall is a mix of this and Grief Song. Judging from the lyrics, Valmar is the singer, singing about his grief and desperation to save the dying Kai, and the risk he's taking by jumping into the Pit of Pallas.
  • Characterization Marches On: Varus as a character had his setup almost completely replaced following his 2017 lore update, introducing significantly differing approaches to his characterization:
  • Charged Attack: His Piercing Arrow charges until it's released when you hit it again, increasing in range and damage the longer you wait.
  • Combat Tentacles: His ultimate releases a big swarm of tendrils that ensnare his enemies.
  • Combos: Blighted Quiver applies Blight on his targets hit, which initially does nothing until set off by him damaging targets afflicted with Blight by another ability of his, doing magic damage equal to a percentage of the target's total health - Blight being stackable up to three times before being set off. Unlike other champions with ability/autoattack interactions, Varus is a bit counter-intuitive in that he needs to attack then use an ability.
  • The Corruption: Like Rhaast, Varus will not stop until he corrupts his host completely. Unluckily for him, Valmar and Kai aren't gonna give up that easily.
  • Curious Qualms of Conscience: While he's still on a violent path of vengeance across Runeterra, Varus has been gradually influenced by the shared thoughts of Kai and Valmar and has developed a semblance of doubt. In Legends of Runeterra, pitting Varus against another Varus has him muse to himself this newfound conflict amidst what was once a simple mission of destroying the world that betrayed him.
    Varus 1: The things they say... remind us of who we were.
    Varus 2: We cannot go back to that, we can only be something new.
    Varus 1: Their voices grow ever stronger, reminding me of mortality.
    Varus 2: This constant we abide, we do not know that they are wrong.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: The Darkin Varus is evil, but his current form was born from the sacrifice of a pair of heroic lovers, who resist him with all their might. And it's implied their humanity and good conscience are rubbing off on the Darkin.
  • Deadly Upgrade: The creation of Varus made a supremely strong entity. But the danger of unleashing a powerful Darkin on the land is not without consequence.
  • Despair Event Horizon:
    • His love on the brink of death from a Noxian attack, Valmar crossed it and offered both of their lives to the pit to save him.
    • Varus himself started as a man who remained at his post despite his entire village being slaughtered nearby. When the Ascended finally came to the battlefield, they offered him the Rite of Ascension, but Varus was permanently traumatized by the event and ended up corrupting into a Darkin after Ascending.
  • Empowered Badass Normal: Valmar and Kai were already a lethal duo of hunters. Combining them with the Darkin's power made them 10x more lethal.
  • Energy Bow: It's not, but the arrows it fires are charged with dark energy. The bow is itself Varus' true form.
  • Environment-Specific Action Figure: Arctic Ops Skin for Varus.
  • Evil Is Not a Toy: Valmar knew the dangers of the pit but offered himself to it anyway. The result has merged him and Kai with a crazed demon.
  • Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: Even as a full Darkin he was "possessed of wondrous beauty," but he was also a monster who enjoyed tormenting his victims. When he returned, he made a beautiful new body for himself out of the flesh of two lovers.
  • Fallen Hero: Like the other Darkin, he was once an ascended warrior of Shurima. He's said to have been loyal and honorable even as a human, and remained in his station while other wardens fled from the battle.
    he alone remained, screaming in anguish with every arrow he loosed—for he had chosen to uphold his oaths rather than return home to protect his own family.
    "The Arrow of Retribution"
  • Fan Disservice: Normally he'd be a Long-Haired Pretty Boy strutting around shirtless, but his unearthly complexion and the obvious signs of corruption on his body lean more towards horror than romanticism.
  • Gameplay and Story Integration: Valmar and Kai speak fairly often, but their voices are lower in the mix and can get buried under the general sounds of combat.
  • Geo Effects: Hail of Arrows leaves behind a circle of desecrated earth that slows and reduces enemy healing.
  • Glass Cannon: As is par for the course with any ranged carry not named Graves; he has good range thanks to Piercing Arrow's massive charge distance, and abnormally high amounts of crowd control for a pure damage-dealer (Hail of Arrows slows and Chain of Corruption stuns), though a lack of escape tools means maintaining as much distance as possible from the front-line is essential.
  • Glowing Eyes of Doom: Emerged from the pit with glowing white eyes.
  • Gone Horribly Right: Valmar didn't want to live without Kai. Now they're both alive and quite literally inseparable.
  • Grappling-Hook Pistol: Arctic Ops Varus fires a grapple from his bow at the end of his recall animation.
  • Heroic Willpower: Valmar and Kai have just enough spirit that they can resist being assimilated by Varus, and even take control of their body when needed.
    Kai: We'll walk together again.
    Valmar: One day...
    Varus: How rare for such will to persist...
  • Humanoid Abomination: Varus may look human, but he's far from it.
  • It's What I Do: Varus scoffs at the notion that he could ever not kill people. After all, he's a weapon of war, not an instrument of peace. Kai and Valmar are currently doing their best to bring him back to his former humanity... or at least use his arrows to protect and defend.
  • Jack of All Trades: In the marksman class, Varus seems pretty average. He doesn't have the insane scaling of Twitch and Tristana, the more reliable utility of Ashe and Sivir, or the outplay potential of Vayne and Lucian. What he does have is decent damage and utility, no real hard counters, and the ability to always be able to provide his team what they need.
  • Jerkass: If Varus hasn't already killed you, he'll instead be mocking or disregarding you as trash. His voice update also gives him a lot of champion interactions where he goes out of his way to put down his opponent. That's not to mention how he treats Valmar and Kai.
    (Killing a champ) Speak your regrets to the dirt.
    Enjoy this respite, sons of Ionia. It will not last.
  • Lighter and Softer: Heartseeker Varus turns him into a sexy cupid.
  • Light Is Not Good: Arclight Varus. Even with his white-and-gold ensemble and light-themed ability particles, he's still the same monster.
  • Living Weapon: 'Varus' is just the Darkin Bow. But his updated voicelines suggest that even as an Ascended he was just a weapon to be pointed at someone else's enemies, and he's bitterly angry about it.
  • Long-Haired Pretty Boy: An ethereally beautiful and long haired Darkin.
  • Long-Range Fighter: Auto-attacks aside, he's got a lot of tools for striking from afar including a long-ranged arrow snipe, a Rain of Arrows to attack and slow groups, and his ultimate which spreads from enemy to enemy, being able to lock down and cripple entire teams.
  • Mechanically Unusual Fighter: Varus's W and passive encourage him towards a hybrid/on-hit build instead of the usual crit chance/raw AD most marksmen lean towards, with items like Blade of the Ruined King, Guinsoo's Rageblade, and Nashor's Tooth being more important than others like Infinity Edge and Rapid Firecannon. This doesn't make him any less dangerous, since he can shred tanks with autos and deal absurd amounts of damage to squishies with his abilities without breaking a sweat.
  • Mighty Glacier: He's one of the most stationary ADCs, not having any kind of dash or speed boost he can trigger from his abilities. But he's got a ton of raw power and area denial that makes him formidable nonetheless.
  • Non-Standard Character Design: Darkin generally looks pretty inhuman and like they've obviously been corrupted from a prior form; Aatrox and Rhaast have an obvious demon motif, while the rest of their kind greatly deviate from a standard humanoid form. Because Varus was retconned into being a Darkin, his more humanoid appearance makes him stand out. Though he does have "flesh pants" like Aatrox does.
  • Not Afraid to Die: Valmar didn't care about the consequences of bringing Kai to the Pit. He soon came to regret that decision.
  • Not the Intended Use: 2020 season saw the rise of Lethality Varus - a build based on assassin items, focused around Lethality (flat armor penetration) and cooldown reduction. This build traded sustained damage output of his regular builds for a powerful, spammable poke and stronger burst, effectively turning Varus into a physical equivalent of Artillery Mages like Ziggs or Xerath.
  • Odd Name Out: Thanks to his retroactive Darkin past, Varus lacks the double-A names that Aatrox, Rhaast, Xolaani, and Taarosh have. It's downplayed in that he's not the only one to buck the trend, but he's still amongst the minority.

    Aatrox: We all agreed on the double-A thing, Varus! The double-A thing!
    Varus (Post-VO update): Aatrox, brother, the double-A thing is absurd and you know it.
  • Power Echoes: His voice noticeably reverberates in all of his skins except Arclight and Heartseeker.
  • Power Glows: You know when to stay away from him, because whenever his passive activates, his weapon glows either red (for a minion kill) or purple (for a champion kill).
  • The Power of Hate: Varus runs on pure spite and a thirst for vengeance. Kai and Valmar resist him with The Power of Love.
  • The Power of Love: Being together and giving each other motivation lets Valmar and Kai inhibit Varus's violence.
    Varus: What strength do you cling to, son of Ionia?
    Kai: Each other.
    Valmar: To the last breath.
  • Purple Is the New Black: The part of him that is Darkin is purple, and his spells have a Void-like purple glow.
  • Purple Is Powerful: Purple is used all over his design, from his lethal bow, the tint of his skin, and the parts of his body where Darkin corruption is most present. Also, whenever his passive activates by killing an enemy champion, his bow starts glowing bright purple.
  • Rain of Arrows: Hail of Arrows drops arrows in a large circle and leaves a corrupted area behind.
  • Retcon: When he was initially released, Varus was an Ionian archer who allowed the corrupting power of the Pit of Pallas to consume him in order to avenge his family. After he was changed to a Darkin bow fused with two Ionian lovers, Riot incorporated some of this lore into the backstory of the man Varus was before he became a Darkin.
  • Revenge: Varus wants to wipe out the world for driving the Darkin to near extinction.
    I will bury the world that buried me.
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Varus, still consumed by the rage he felt from the purging of his kind, goes on one when he emerges from the pit.
  • Scarf Of Ass Kicking: One of the most noticeable parts of his character besides his bow, considering how long it is and how little clothing he's wearing otherwise.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: Varus was safely sealed in a pit in Ionia before Valmar released him.
  • Sealed Evil in a Duel: The present state, though Kai and Valmar aren't very effective at keeping Varus in check.
  • Sharing a Body: Three people, though Varus has the most control and is hoping Kai and Valmar's personalities will fade out or die off.
  • Stealth Pun: 'Varus' is also a deformity of the knee, more commonly known as bowleggedness. Some suspect this is also a reference to the "arrow to the knee" joke.
  • Symbiotic Possession: LoR suggests that Varus, Kai, and Valmar will eventually become a willing partnership.
    He embraced the sum of his parts instead of working against them — and when they acted, they acted as one.
  • Taking You with Me: In most of his death animations, the bow explodes and rams pieces of itself through his body when Varus is defeated. Oddly, he will sometimes say Kai and Valmar's names when this happens, as if he regrets getting them killed.
  • Token Good Teammate: Downplayed given his Wild Card nature. But among the playable Darkin, Varus shows more hints of a conscience and potential for being a better individual, whereas Aatrox, Rhaast and Naafiri all lean towards different shades of evil.
  • Took a Level in Kindness: Legends of Runeterra heavily suggests that Varus has regained some of his humanity, thanks to the influence of Kai and Valmar. While still intent on revenge, Varus no longer kills every human he encounters. In fact, he's even taken on a few followers and granted them some of his power.
  • Undeathly Pallor: His skin is very pale.
  • Unstoppable Rage: Varus is a being of pure rage, determined to wipe out all in his way. Only Kai and Valmar's combined influence keeps him mildly in check. This is even reflected in his gameplay due to the ramping momentum his abilities provide, allowing him to go on huge kill streaks.
  • Vocal Evolution: Varus received a voice-over update in 2023 that greatly updated his characterization and lore, now fully incorporating his Darkin status into his lines. Valmar and Kai also get lines of their own, interacting with Varus throughout the game.
  • Voice of the Legion: His voice has an ominous echo in all but his Arclight and Heartseeker skins.
  • Walking Shirtless Scene: His upper body's completely bare (he's technically not wearing pants, either).
  • White Hair, Black Heart: Varus has pale while hair and is also a sadistic archer who enjoys toying with his victims.
  • Wild Card: It's difficult to say whether or not Varus is truly evil; he bounces between being a wrathful force of destruction with little care for others and more of a Noble Demon who shows the occasional hint of regret and wanting to re-experience his humanity. Valmar and Kai also stop him from truly letting loose which means Varus can't just destroy as he pleases the same way other Darkin can.
  • Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Two people who love each other, merged with a broken, Omnicidal Maniac merely because one couldn't live without the other.
  • You Are Better Than You Think You Are: One of his interactions with Seraphine in Legends of Runeterra has her say that there's still some nobility in him. Valmar and Kai too note that he can still regain the humanity he lost. Varus seems to respond to these beckonings with mixed signals.
    Valmar: Varus, you were once human
    Kai: You can be again.
    Varus: I cannot go back. I must be more...
  • You Can't Go Home Again: Knowing Varus is too dangerous, Kai and Valmar are relegated to Walking the Earth to contain him.
  • You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: He's struck with disbelief by the form that Naafiri took on.
    Varus: (Upon first encountering Naafiri) "Hounds, Naafiri? You make me grateful for my vessels!"

    Vayne, the Night Hunter 

Shauna Vayne

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/vayne_originalloading.jpg
"Let us hunt those who have fallen to darkness."

Voiced by: Nika Futterman (English/Original), Alexa Kahn (English/Current, PROJECT-), Isabel Donate (European Spanish), Sarah Souza (Mexican Spanish), Asami Yoshida (Japanese), Priscila Amorim (Brazilian Portuguese), Hyun-Shim Kim (Korean), Irina Savina (Russian/1st Voice), Olga Pletneva (Russian/Current)
Appears in: Legends of Runeterra

"I don’t kill creatures like you because it’s the right thing to do. I kill you because I enjoy it."

Shauna Vayne is a deadly, remorseless Demacian monster hunter, who has dedicated her life to finding and destroying the demon that murdered her family. Armed with a wrist-mounted crossbow and a heart full of vengeance, she is only truly happy when slaying practitioners or creations of the dark arts, striking from the shadows with a flurry of silver bolts.

Vayne is a Marksman champion who deals very high single-target damage, even to durable foes, and who tempers her fragility with repositioning and short bursts of stealth.
  • Her passive, Night Hunter, increases Vayne's movement speed when moving towards a visible enemy champion.
  • With her first ability, Tumble, Vayne rolls a short distance in a target direction, maneuvering to carefully place her next shot, causing her next basic attack to deal increased damage.
  • Her second ability, Silver Bolts, passively tips Vayne's crossbow bolts with magical silver, marking enemies damaged by her attacks and abilities for a few seconds, stacking up to three times. When a target reaches three stacks, they are consumed to deal bonus true damage based on the target's max health. Only one enemy can be marked at the same time, however.
  • Her third ability, Condemn, fires a massive crossbow bolt at a nearby enemy, damaging them and sending them flying backwards. If they hit a wall they are pinned to it, taking bonus damage and being briefly stunned.
  • With her ultimate ability, Final Hour, Vayne focuses her combat instincts for a few seconds, greatly increasing her attack damage, tripling the movement speed bonus from Night Hunter and making her briefly invisible after using Tumble. Killing or helping kill an enemy champion while Final Hour is active extends its duration.

Vayne's alternate skins include Vindicator Vayne, Aristocrat Vayne, Dragonslayer Vayne, Heartseeker Vayne, SKT T1 Vayne, Arclight Vayne, Soulstealer Vayne, PROJECT: Vayne, Firecracker Vayne, Prestige Firecracker Vayne, FPX Vayne, Spirit Blossom Vayne, Sentinel Vayne, Battle Bat Vayne, Dawnbringer Vayne, and Dragonmancer Vayne.

In season 1 of Teamfight Tactics, Vayne is a Tier 1 Noble Ranger. Her Silver Bolts is a passive ability that deals true damage equal to a percentage of the target's maximum health after hitting them with three basic attacks in a row. In season 2, since she was already using her Arclight Vayne skin, the only thing that was changed about her was her origin changing from Noble to Light. She was initially removed in season 3, but returned in the Return to the Stars mid-set update using her PROJECT: Vayne skin as a 3 cost Cybernetic Sniper. Her ability was changed to Final Hour, which causes Vayne to focus for several seconds. While focused, she tumbles away from her target immediately upon casting Final Hour as well as after every third basic attack. Tumbling makes Vayne's next basic attack deal additional physical damage and briefly turns her invisible, drawing away enemy aggro. In season 4, she is reworked into a Tier 1 Dusk Sharpshooter using her Spirit Blossom skin. Silver Bolts returns as her ability from seasons 1 and 2, though in this incarnation she can apply stacks to multiple enemies at once in exchange for the bonus damage no longer being based on maximum health. She was removed along with the Dusk origin in the Festival of Beasts mid-set update. She returns using her Soulstealer Vayne skin as a Tier 1 Forgotten Ranger, retaining Silver Bolts as her ability. She was removed in season 6, returning in season 8 using her Battle Bat Vayne skin as a Tier 3 Anima Squad Recon Duelist. Her new Silver Bolt ability simply fires a true damage bolt at her target that scales with both her attack damage and ability power. She loses her Recon class due to the removal of the trait in the Glitched Out!! mid-set update.

In Legends of Runeterra, Vayne is a 3-mana 3/4 Demacia Champion that generates a Tumble (4-mana Slow spell that chooses an ally to start a free attack and equips it with an Equipment from your hand that costs 2 or less) in your hand upon being summoned or on Round Start, or if you already have one, reduces its cost by 1. Once she's seen you attack 4 times Vayne levels up, gaining +1/+1 and upgrading her ability to generate a 0-cost Tumble or reduce an existing Tumble's cost to 0. Her Champion Spell is Vayne's Condemn (6-mana Fast spell that makes an ally strike an enemy, and costs 5 less if you've attacked at least twice that round).
  • Achilles' Heel: Like Tristana, her damage output is almost solely through autoattacks since her abilities mostly boost their potency (the exception, Condemn, is usually reserved for its utility). This makes her vulnerable to anything that slows her attack speed (like Randuin's Omen or Frozen Heart) or returns autoattack damage (like Thornmail, although it should be noted that Thornmail does not reflect back the Silver Bolt % health damage).
  • Anti-Hero: According to RiotRunaan she could have been the Batman to Lucian's Superman, at least before he shifted from The Hero to an Anti-Hero after his wife's death.
  • Anti-Frustration Features: The coding for Runaan's Hurricane was specifically modified to not apply Silver Bolts to the two other targets, since the passive only stacks when fired on the same target. Previously, Vayne's that built the item would end up screwing themselves over by removing stacks of Silver Bolts on her target the moment she applied them.
  • Awesome, but Impractical: Vayne is infamous for having some of the most powerful raw DPS of all marksmen, which when combined with solid kiting potential makes her one of the scariest to end up in a duel with when she's ahead. However, as a tradeoff, she's persistently fragile, has relatively low range, lacks any sort of utility or diverse abilities beyond basic attacks and Condemn (consequently making her mediocre at waveclear or tower pushing), and her early game is weak and easily-punishable even by marksmen standards. Once fed with the help of her team, she can definitely shred apart enemy teams, but even pro players generally see her as a niche pick who's too much of a risk when compared to other, more versatile and safer marksmen.
  • Arch-Enemy: While she currently doesn't have any new lines to indicate this (only for her Sentinel skin), Evelynn is on the top of her to-kill list due to her taunt revealing her as the one responsible for torturing and killing Vayne's family.
  • Armor-Piercing Attack: One of Vayne's signature moves deals extra true damage (which ignores armor altogether) based on a percentage of the target's health upon attacking it three times consecutively, meaning that stacking armor or health means little to the Vayne hunting you down.
  • The Artifact: Vayne's base design reeks of Early-Installment Weirdness, being firmly rooted in Comic Book design rather than anything Demacian. Something Riot is clearly aware of, given their efforts to abandon it.
    • Starting with the Sentinels of Light Event, Vayne was given a Legendary Skin with new animations, voicework, and effects. While the event as a whole is of... debatable canonity, one of the things that is concrete is Vayne's story moving forward, culminating in her remaining a Sentinel after the event unlike most of the Ragtag Bunch of Misfits Lucian and Senna picked up while chasing Viego.
    • Legends of Runeterra completely abandons what is Vayne's 'base' design in League of Legends, going all-in on depicting her in her post-sentinel appearance and personality. In effect, Vayne's base design is literally out of date - her current 'base' is the Sentinel Vayne skin, functioning as a not-quite VGU to move her away from her comic book origins.
  • Automatic Crossbows: With items her crossbow sees some ludicrous firing speeds.
  • Badass Boast: "The dark... should fear ME!"
  • Badass Cape: It's shown off quite nicely when she runs around and when leaving Tumble.
  • BFG: Carries a huge crossbow on her back in addition to the normal-sized one on her wrist. She uses it to fire the giant shot that pins enemies to walls in her Condemn, and during her ult, she unslings it and uses it for all her attacks for the duration (hence the damage buff and loud chunky hit sound).
  • Black-and-White Insanity: She ruthlessly murders even sympathetic practitioners of black magic. Shown best when she remorselessly cut down someone she saw as a mother - and who just saved her life - because she had revealed herself to be adept in dark magics. In Steadfast Heart, she comes close to assassinating Senna on sight despite the fact both of them want to fight off the Black Mist.
  • Blood Knight: The only reason she hunts monsters is because it's the only thing in life that makes her happy.
  • Boring, but Practical: Vayne's entire kit boils down to "shoot arrows at people", far beyond the level of even other autoattack-based carries. Her Q makes her do a very small dodge roll then make the next arrow she shoots at people hurt more. Her W is a passive that triggers when she shoots enough arrows at people. Her E shoots a big arrow at a person that knocks them back. And her ult makes her shoot bigger arrows at people that hurt more for a limited duration. She's LoL's defining example of "Right-click to win".
  • Character Development: The Ruined King saga really helped Vayne become a less of a jerk when it comes to her ardent monster-hunting. She still has her bloodlust and has issues working with others, but she's willing to make more exceptions to her magic-wielding vendetta for the greater good, developing an increasingly professional rapport with Senna in spite of her wraith-like nature. By the end, she decides to commit to the Sentinel business full-time, putting her vengeance to a slightly more constructive use.
  • Cool Shades: Pretty much requisite for almost every outfit she has, whether they have flashy opaque lens or are transparent and stylish (and if she doesn't have glasses, there's something else covering her eyes, like her blindfold in her Spirit Blossom skin). Her default outfit having piercing ruby-lensed shades, and she gets to keep them with her Sentinel outfit (though in certain lights, they reflect a brighter orange-yellow color).
  • Confusion Fu: Her ultimate lets her turn invisible briefly after using Tumble, letting her screw with her opponents for a bit. That Vayne that just disappeared could reappear in a few seconds to inflict more damage before disappearing again. Or she might have escaped through a brush. Or she might be right behind you.
  • The Cowl: To the rest of Demacia, Shauna Vayne is just an aristocrat that went missing as a little girl. She does her work in the dead of night to keep this illusion up.
  • Difficult, but Awesome: Vayne is best at dealing high sustained damage over time rather than in quick bursts, which is easier said than done in a pitched fight. Even worse is her reliance on positioning to fully maximize the Tumble + Condemn combo to secure kills when everyone trying to kill her specifically (not to mention, she is highly dependent on auto-attacking, which her auto-attack range is quite short). Her laning phase is one of the worst ones in the entire game; if you go against Caitlyn, you're pretty much better off just letting her take your tower. Bad Vaynes die quickly, good ones are absolute monsters in late game and destroy even tanks with impunity. The League community seems to have a special respect for how awful of a laning phase Vayne has (among all Attack Damage Carries) yet how absolutely devastating she becomes in the right hands.
  • Detect Evil: Her passive informs the player if they're heading toward an enemy by increasing her movement speed. This ties into her backstory where she tunes her senses to pick on evil scents.
  • Evil Sounds Deep: Downplayed; she's by no means a good person, and happens to have one of the deeper and more raspier voices of the female cast, especially in her Sentinel skin. Pretty fitting for a brutal demon hunter who uses the night as her veil.
  • Expy: Vayne has her origins solidly rooted in comic books, and when she started out was a blatant combination of Batman and Huntress in terms of skills, gear, and weaponry, with a little vampire hunter thrown in for flavor.
  • Fanservice: Dragonslayer Vayne, Heartseeker Vayne, and Firecracker Vayne all put more emphasis on her curves than other skins.
  • Fire-Forged Friends: Her getting enlisted into the Sentinels is rough, especially in the Steadfast Heart canon where she was dead-set on killing Senna from the get-go, and even without that, she has a lot of personal reason to distrust her new allies. However, by the end of the Ruined King saga, she's more or less come to peace with completing her mission and finds a new calling working for the Sentinels permanently.
  • Fragile Speedster: Combined with Glass Cannon. Her passive lets her move more quickly when moving toward enemies (more so during her ultimate) and her Tumble lets her have a lot of potential mobility with some good timing and juking. Staying on the move while simultaneously attacking is essential for Vayne to both stay alive and remain useful. However, so much as being breathed on is lethal for her.
  • Glass Cannon: A very extreme example. Even compared to other attack damage carries, her damage potential is absolutely staggering and tears even high health opponents apart in very few basic attacks at anything near her full build of items. However, so much as being breathed on is lethal for her.
  • Good Is Not Soft: If you willingly use black magic to harm others, Vayne will be your Judge, Jury, and Executioner. No questions asked. And as of now, simply knowing black magic immediately puts you on her shit list.
  • Hunter of Monsters: Of all evil creatures and persons.
  • Gun Kata: Her dance animation is an allusion to Equilibrium, though with a crossbow instead of a firearm.
  • Hit-and-Run Tactics: Vayne's innate movement speed from Night Hunter and low cooldown of Tumble in higher ranks encourages players to kite the crap out of your approaching opponents. It's not uncommon for Trinity Force to build in Vayne as well because of this.
  • I Am Not Left-Handed: One might get the impression that her huger crossbow is too heavy for normal use, given how it's usually only brought out for the Condemn bolt. Then she uses Final Hour and shows that she's quite proficient at rolling around and shooting people to death with it as well.
  • Irony: At the start of the Ruination event, she's insistent that she's only joining Lucian and Senna "for now". By the end of it, she's the only new Sentinel recruit who stays with the organization full-time, manning the Demacian division.
  • Kick the Dog: She killed her mentor Faye instantly and without hesitation simply because Faye had the ability to shapeshift into a wolf, despite all the training Faye provided her with and the fact that Faye had just saved her life.
  • Knight Templar:
    • She is compared to Lucian, much more willing to do whatever it takes to destroy the darkness. Her new lore explicitly shows that she puts ALL creatures, people, and entities with dark powers in the same category, regardless of alignment. Ironically, this puts her in an antagonistic role to Lucian because of Senna.
    • As a Demacian, she's an extreme product of the magic-hating propaganda the nation pushes, killing specifically dark magic entities indiscriminately.
  • Last-Name Basis: And according to Graves, you best keep it that way.
    Graves: And for the love of all that’s sacred, never call her ‘Shauna.’ She will break your neck by looking at it.
  • Light Is Not Good: Appointed by the Sentinels and wields their holy weaponry in the name of protecting the world against the Black Mist, but she has a lot of issues that don't paint her in the most heroic of lights.
  • Magikarp Power: Quite weak early and requires a ton of babysitting, but if she gets even one kill, look out. A well-fed Vayne can VERY easily wreck an entire team on her own.
  • Nominal Hero: Vayne veers pretty hard from mere ambiguous antiheroism into just plain , as she has a sociopathic obsession with hunting creatures of the dark (or those associated with it) almost entirely because it's all that makes her happy anymore. She gets recruited into the Sentinels not because she's a nice person, but because her ability to mercilessly hunt down prey is needed for Viego and they can't be picky.
  • No Sense of Humor: She's incredibly serious, and attempting to have her do one has her say she has no time for such nonsense.
  • No Social Skills: She's been laying low throughout Demacia for decades, prefers working alone, and in general is a very consciously asocial person. She's only marginally better working with the Sentinels, mostly because she has something to gain from it and putting up with them.
    Vayne: I've gotten too used to the sound of my own voice. Now I have to talk... normal.
  • One-Man Army: Once Vayne is equipped with good items, she can mow down an entire team in seconds thanks to both the sheer amount of damage she can pump out and her excellent mobility and juking (to compensate for the lack of toughness other One-Man Army champions possess).
  • Opaque Lenses: Her classic and Aristocrat skins depict her with these, with her classic being a dark red.
  • Percent Damage Attack: Vayne is (in)famous for her Silver Bolts being able to deal true damage based on her target's maximum health. In theory, a Vayne is literally guaranteed to kill any target with enough continuous autoattacks (even with gross imbalances in the two champions' items) though in practice it's a difficult task to get so many attacks off without getting killed herself.
  • Pet the Dog: Following their initially hostile introduction, Vayne eventually develops a fairer amount of respect towards Senna compared to all her other Sentinel comrades, whom she either distrusts or is grossly indifferent towards. In-game, while she's more than happy to take on other Sentinels should they face against her, she ends up sounding quite disappointed to see Senna on "the wrong side."
  • Pinned to the Wall: Condemn pushes an enemy back and stuns them if they collide into a wall by doing this.
  • Scarily Competent Tracker: She can smell traces of magic when hunting her targets down.
  • Silver Bullet: Silver Bolts lets every third attack deal extra true damage.
  • Sociopathic Hero: Her hatred for dark magic leads her to do some rather questionable things. The most damning of which would be killing her mentor, showing a lack of compassion and connection.
  • Spy Catsuit: Dressed rather reasonably for a female champion but her pants are skin-tight.
  • Token Evil Teammate: Her new lore makes her out to be absolutely, UTTERLY ruthless towards black magic practitioners - while true to Demacia's anti-magic stances and hatred for demons, Vayne admits herself she doesn't kill these monsters because it's the right thing to do - but because she finds it fun. It doesn't matter if you had nothing but noble reasons to tap into dark power - just the act of doing so puts you on Vayne's hit list. This extends to her joining the Sentinels of Light. She's not in it to save the world or do good. She just wants a better class of monster to hunt.
  • Ungrateful Bastard: In her backstory, she killed her mentor after she used dark magic to save her life.
  • Vampire Hunter: Sure, she doesn't just hunt vampires, but the archetype is there.
  • Vengeance Feels Empty: Should she kill Evelynn in her Sentinel skin, getting her long overdue revenge for her family, her anger is still there.
    Vayne: That felt pretty good, demon. So why am I still angry?
  • Vigilante Man: Despite being officially aligned to Demacia, her actions operate way outside Demacian-sanctioned law, and she's recognized as a fugitive to the city-state.

    Veigar, the Tiny Master of Evil 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/veigar_originalloading21.jpg
"Know that if the tables were turned, I would show you no mercy!"

Voiced by: Bob Beal (English/Original), Scott McNeil (English/Current, Final Boss-), Yolanda Pérez (European Spanish), Oliver Magaña (Mexican Spanish), Natsuki Hanae (Japanese), Airam Pinheiro (Brazilian Portuguese), Nak-Yoon Choi (Korean), Vasily Zotov (Russian)
Appears in: Legends of Runeterra

"You deny the darkness in your soul..."

An enthusiastic yordle sorcerer, Veigar has embraced powers that few others dare even approach. As a free-spirited inhabitant of Bandle City, he once longed to learn more of the celestial magic practiced by mortals, but his natural curiosity was twisted by imprisonment in the Immortal Bastion. Now a stubborn creature with the dark fury of the stars at his command, Veigar is often underestimated by others—and though he believes himself truly evil, there are some who still question his deeper motivations..

Veigar is a Burst Mage champion whose destructive power continuously grows as the game goes on, easily blowing up single targets to smithereens if allowed to farm enough.
  • His passive, Phenomenal Evil Power, grants Veigar a stack of Phenomenal Evil when his abilities hit an enemy champion, and five stacks if he kills or helps kill an enemy champion. Each Phenomenal Evil stack increases Veigar's ability power.
  • His first ability, Baleful Strike, sends a dark bolt in a target direction, damaging the first two enemies it hits. Enemies killed by Baleful Strike grant Veigar a Phenomenal Evil stack, increasing to two stacks if it kills a large minion or monster.
  • With his second ability, Dark Matter, Veigar summons a meteorite of dark matter that falls from the sky at a target location after a short delay, dealing heavy damage to surrounding enemies upon landing. The cooldown of the ability is reduced based on the number of Phenomenal Evil stacks Veigar has stored.
  • His third ability, Event Horizon, twists space around a target location, creating a circular fence of dark energy after a short delay that briefly stuns enemies that try to pass through its perimeter.
  • With his ultimate ability, Primordial Burst, Veigar blasts a nearby enemy champion with devastating primordial energy, dealing heavy damage that increases based on their missing health.

Veigar's alternate skins include White Mage Veigar, Curling Veigar, Veigar Greybeard, Leprechaun Veigar, Baron Von Veigar, Superb Villain Veigar, Bad Santa Veigar, Final Boss Veigar, Omega Squad Veigar, Elderwood Veigar, Furyhorn Cosplay Veigar, Astronaut Veigar, Monster Tamer Veigar, and King Beegar.

In season 1 of Teamfight Tactics, Veigar is a Tier 3 Yordle Sorcerer. His Primordial Burst ability fires a ball of energy that instantly kills its target if it's at lower star level than Veigar, and deals magic damage otherwise. In season 2 he was changed to being a Shadow Mage, but was otherwise unchanged. He was removed in season 3 before returning in season 4 as a Tier 3 Elderwood Mage using his Elderwood skin. His new ability, Dark Blossom, is similar to that of Primordial Burst; though it no longer instantly kills targets with lower star levels, Veigar permanently gains spell power for the rest of the match whenever he kills an enemy with the ability. He was removed in season 5, returning in season 6 using his Furyhorn Cosplay Veigar skin as a secret Tier 5 champion that cannot be found in the shop like every other champion. Instead, copies of him can only be summoned to your bench through the Yordle origin synergy bonus when you own a 3-star copy of every other Yordle champion. His sole trait is the Yordle-Lord origin, which allows him to benefit from the Yordle synergy bonuses without adding to the trait breakpoints, and his ability is Furyhorn Storm, which causes a large number of Furyhorns based on Veigar's star level to randomly rain down on the battlefield, each dealing magic damage to enemies they strike.

In Legends of Runeterra, Veigar is a 4-mana 1/4 dual Bandle City and Shadow Isles Yordle Champion who when summoned creates a Darkness (a 3-mana Shadow Isles Slow spell that deals 2 damage to an enemy unit) in your hand if you don't have one already and passively increases the damage of allied copies of Darkness everywhere by 1 at the start of each round. When you have dealt a total of 12 or more damage with any number of Darkness casts in a game he levels up, becoming "Grand Overseer Veigar" and changing his group tag to Mecha-Yordle, gaining +1/+1, passively generating a Darkness in your hand at the start each round if you don't have one already, and upgrading your Darkness casts to be able to target any unit or Nexus on either side of the field while he remains in play. His Champion Spell is Veigar's Event Horizon.
  • Accidental Hero: He hasn't accomplished a whole lot in terms of major overt villainy, with some of his acts turning out to be inadvertently helpful for the local populace. In "The True and Ghastly Tale of the Beast of Boleham Tower", he apparently managed to terrorize a warlord out of the area with the intention of beginning a "campaign of terror upon neighboring villainous sorcerers," something the local townsfolk formerly under her control respond to with confused gratitude. One of them even manages to talk him into fighting another evil sorcerer rumored to be nearby.
  • Adaptational Nationality: Veigar's current whereabouts are unclear, though given his backstory in working for Mordekaiser, it seems that he may reside somewhere around modern-day Noxus, or at least somewhere on the Runeterran continent. Legends of Runeterra instead classifies him as a Shadow Isles card, likely for gameplay/design purposes.
  • Awesome, but Impractical: The main reason Veigar isn't seen too much is because his lack of mobility and squishiness are often too much of a liability for his team. A fed Veigar is one of the scariest things in the game, but all that damage means nothing if he dies in roughly two seconds.
  • Badass Adorable: He's so evil, it wraps around to adorable, though that doesn't stop him from being able to deal absurd amounts of burst damage.
  • Bad Santa: Bad Santa Veigar, naturally. According to Riot, he only has a Naughty list.
  • Balance Buff: Veigar has always had a distinct gameplay curve of "farm up now to build bonus AP, one-shot enemy champions later", but a lot of his scaling power was directly tied to just Baleful Strike (which before patch 5.4, it was only a single target point-and-click spell), and his Primordial Burst scaled off the opponent's ability power, making him more of a niche Mage Killer champion. The 2016 midseason mage update gave Veigar new tools by replacing his old passivenote  into Phenomenal Evil Power, making his AP-stacking mechanic even more of a central focus, and also making Primordial Burst a decisive and more universally-applicable Finishing Move scaling off the target's missing health.
  • Being Tortured Makes You Evil: He was merely an ambitious yordle before being tortured and twisted by Mordekaiser into becoming his minion. In the old canon, he was instead tortured by Noxians until his mind snapped.
    Knowing that yordles were craftier than any of the mortal races, Mordekaiser bound Veigar to the physical plane, preventing him even from escaping to Bandle City. He was not the only captive in that hellish place, but such isolation was the worst and most cruel form of torture for a yordle.
    The Tiny Master of Evil
  • Berserk Button: Anything that even tangentially reminds him of his tiny stature is sure to instantly tick him off, even if it wasn't even directed at him to begin with.
    Tenor of Terror: Care for a little song, Lord Veigar?
    Veigar: DON'T USE THAT WORD! Yes please, thank you.
  • Beware the Silly Ones: His goals for achieving great villainy are rather ridiculous and ineffective, and he's rather childish and naïve as far as yordles go. But his magical power is the real deal; the implications of League are that he could grow to become the most destructive mage on Runeterra with the right push, but really he's not that threatening once you get to know him.
  • Black Mage: Being a very unsubtle spoof of the original Black Mage, Veigar is all about nuking enemies with his absurdly powerful offensive spells that just get stronger and stronger the more he lands them. That bonus AP he gains grows infinitely, meaning he's potentially one of the strongest spellcasters in the game. He's not exactly invincible though.
  • Boring, but Practical: His ultimate is not very flashy, being just a point-and-click nuke, but the sheer amount of damage it can deal more than makes up for the lack of pizzazz.
  • Card-Carrying Villain: Pretty much all of his lines have him blatantly boast his power, not that it really poses much of a threat.
  • Casting a Shadow: In Legends of Runeterra, a bulk of Veigar's kit is tied to a damage spell called "Darkness", which aesthetically resembles more like this than the dark celestial motif he normally uses (it more specifically resembles the Black Mist, which makes sense given he's listed as a Shadow Isles champion in LoR).
  • Cat Stereotype: Although it's hard to see, especially given that he has a constant Face Framed in Shadow, multiple sources, including several skins, his Wild Rift model, and even his own official plushie imply that he looks very similar to a black cat, fitting with his title as "Tiny Master of Evil."
  • Computers Are Fast: It's been well established that if anything, the AI is good at pulling off nuke spell combos at superhuman speeds. Veigar is no exception, and his ability to execute his full combo within the space of his stun makes him as brutal as Annie Bot.
  • The Dark Side Will Make You Forget: Quite literally; before Mordekaiser was sealed away, Veigar spent so many hundreds of years as his minion that he forgot who he once was, where he came from, and whether he once had friends. All he had left was evil, and so he made that the core of his identity, no matter how bad he is at actually being evil.
  • Dastardly Whiplash: Superb Villain Veigar comes complete with a top hat, monocle, and giant handlebar mustache.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: How he reacts to Caitlyn's short joke.
    Veigar: "Dear Diary, kill Caitlyn."
  • The Dragon: He once unwillingly served as one to Mordekaiser.
  • Evil Laugh: His default voiceover has the most laugh lines of any champion in the game, and he's sure to let one out if he finishes someone off with Primordial Burst. That said, any threat factor is somewhat negated by his shrill voice.
  • Eviler than Thou: He often tries to pull this on other villains, but inadvertently ends up helps the people those villains were oppressing in the process, making his actual "evil" questionable.
  • Evil Overlord:
    • Parodied. Veigar so desperately wants to be this, but ultimately makes his subjects' lives a little bit better by virtue of periodically killing much worse villains than him.
    • Legends of Runeterra shows that at the very least, he has amassed a few genuine yordle followers, all of which are depicted as surprisingly competent, and all addressing him as their "Lord Veigar". Among them are a duo of operatic mages, a darkness/lightning-wielding acolyte, a mage with mirror-based duplication/transmutation powers, a personal wizardly scholar, and a dedicated tailor.
  • Expressive Accessory: The eye of the gem on Final Boss Veigar's staff changes with some actions.
  • Expy: Of Black Mage from 8-Bit Theater.
  • Finishing Move: His ultimate becomes FAR more deadly if you're at all low on health. As a note, the scaling on it goes from 75% of his AP to a rather whopping 150% of his AP if you're sufficiently low. Considering the amount of AP Veigar often gets (getting over 1000 in a single game is very likely), this can lead to terrifying amounts of damage.
  • Forced into Evil: Veigar arrived to Valoran as a curious apprentice of celestial magic, but was unfortunately caught up in Mordekaiser's brutal conquest, imprisoned to serve as his underling. In a combination to with the isolation and the terrifying state of the empire, Veigar was forced to abide, wrecking his fragile mind in the process.
  • Four Fingered Hand: His gauntlets have always only had four fingers despite older Yordle champions having five, with the implication that either he had two fingers inside one slot, or the Noxians cut them off. In a possible combination of Early-Installment Weirdness and Art Evolution, Riot officially confirmed that Yordles have only four fingers, correcting past artwork of other yordle champions so that Veigar wasn't the exception.
  • Gathering Steam: Veigar isn't very impressive to start with, but letting him get kills is a fatal mistake, since his passive ensures that as long as he keeps blasting champions, he'll get stronger and stronger.
  • Glass Cannon: Veigar is both fragile and lacking in mobility. He needs to be in the right place at the right time, but he has high burst potential that can kill single targets in the blink of an eye.
  • Go Mad from the Isolation: A consistent element in various iterations of his lore, demonstrating what happens when Yordles are deprived of the companionship they need to survive. In his current biography, this came from Mordekaiser, who imprisoned Veigar and forcibly made him his dark magic expert, binding him to the physical plane so he could never return to Bandle City. Coupled with the hellish conditions of the empire, Veigar's memories of his past life snuffed out, and even after Mordekaiser was overthrown, he chose to embrace his evil-ness... or at least, attempt to.
  • Harmless Villain:
  • Height Angst: He really doesn't want you to think that he's tiny. Legends of Runeterra reveals that he tries to posture himself as bigger (literally and metaphorically) than his underlings, and his interactions with his Stilted Robemaker shows he invests a lot of time and effort in secret to make him look like a big and scary Evil Overlord.
  • Human Ladder: Veigar's level-up animation in Legends of Runeterra shows him climbing a tower of a dozen or so poor minions just to reach the platform for him to become Grand Overseer Veigar.
  • Humongous Mecha: Legends of Runeterra shows that his level-up form — Grand Overseer Veigar — has him assume a giant mech shaped after himself, which in terms of gameplay makes his "Darkness" spell even more dangerous and relentless, and visually finally gives him the vertical intimidation factor he's been looking for.
  • Identity Amnesia: As he was trapped under Mordekaier's servitude, and prevented from returning to his home, Veigar's mind was slowly whittled down with his past becoming a complete unknown to him. This paved the way for his evil overlord persona to take over.
    Memories of his past faded. Why had he come to Valoran? Where had he come from? Had he known any other life before this? Questions such as these weighed on his fragile mind, like the last flickers of light before an eclipse.
    The Tiny Master of Evil
  • Immortal Immaturity: Despite being old enough to have seen the founding of Noxus, you'd be forgive for thinking Veigar is much younger given his lack of maturity. His goofy and ineffective plays to be the an Evil Overlord just make him come off as a misguided youngling.
  • Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Veigar so desperately wants to be taken seriously as a villain, but his pitiful attempts at diabolical acts (especially when combined with his tragic backstory) come off as hilariously endearing rather than scary. Other champions like Lulu, Galio and Senna are quite affectionate towards him as a result.
    Deep down, he most likely yearned to regain the sense of safety and freedom that all living things crave.
    And yet, he chose not to turn away from evil, but to embrace it. Clad in armor befitting a sinister warlock, he vowed to seize respect in the only way he could remember—through ruthless villainy, inspiring fear in all who encountered him. He would call down the fury of the stars themselves upon his foes, and trap them in the timeless infinities between moments.
    And yet... Veigar could not quite find the same success as his former captor.
    The Tiny Master of Evil
  • Interspecies Friendship: He, a yordle, gets along with Senna, a human...ghost lady.
    Senna: Veigar! I brought the darkness...
    Veigar: Now I'll bring the doom! (evil giggle)
  • Killer Rabbit: He's a Yordle. He's less physically imposing than a Hobbit. And yet, late game, if Veigar is well-fed, any appearance of Veigar is a Mass "Oh, Crap!" for the opposing team.
  • Kill Sat: Omega Squad Veigar's version of Dark Matter is depicted as an orbital strike.
  • Large Ham: All his declarations of being evil are done in a very hammy (but humorously high-pitched) voice.
  • Leprechaun: Leprechaun Veigar, natch, which also gives him green, clover-themed particle effects.
  • Lesser of Two Evils: In his color story, he initially earned the ire of a peasant village for ruining their crops (something he simultaneously denies and leans into), but after discovering he had actually successfully defeated a local warlord to a point they swore to never return, they decide to let him continue his "reign of terror," especially since his inconveniencing seems to be the worst he really has to offer in terms of maliciousness.
  • Mage Killer: This currently isn't the case anymore, but prior to the mid-2016 mage reworks, Veigar's ultimate, rather than being a missing HP-scaling Finishing Move, was instead a nuke that scaled off his opponent's ability power. This made him decent at bursting out many other AP-based midlane mages, but became pretty situational depending on enemy team comps if they can rely on attack damage instead, and he's since been reworked to gain a lot more general burst mage power.
  • Magic Staff: It's normal-sized for a human, but for a Yordle it's positively huge.
  • Magikarp Power:
    • The best thing to do when fighting Veigar is DO NOT LET HIM GET FED. Do not let him farm too much because, like Nasus, he has an ability that becomes more powerful if he gets the last hit in. The problem is that like Nasus, he must must must MUUUUUST spend the early game farming, and this can turn against him because he can be harassed but can't harass back or else he'll lose time farming or get focus-fired. The other problem, for the opposing team, is that Veigar is an even better example than Nasus. Nasus's Siphoning Strike only powers up that ability on last hits. Veigar's Baleful Strike powers up all of his abilities, as it increases AP on last hits. He also has extremely high AP-to-damage ratios.
    • The gameplay pattern carries on in his Legends of Runeterra incarnation, whose core power is based around generating his "Darkness" spell. It's a pretty middling damage spell at first, but it's available to him with each round and permanently gets stronger with each one — combined with Followers who can further generate and augment Darkness, Veigar can get pretty frightening pretty fast.
  • Minion with an F in Evil: Downplayed in some ways. Mordekaiser specifically (and literally!) handpicked Veigar to serve as his personal dark magic expert due to him knowing the value of Yordle magic, and for the most part, it seemed to have been a decently successful choice. For Veigar himself, however, even after his mind snapped like a twig and he began aspiring to impose his own brand of tyranny, his ambitions are simply nowhere near as ghastly. Notably, his "subjects" in the present day see him as a much more palatable choice in evil overlords compared to the ones he defeated.
  • The Napoleon: He still sees short jokes in every mention of the word and doesn't really appreciate it.
    "It's only a 'short' way? Is that a short joke!?!"
  • Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: As a testament to his unintentionally-endearing brand of "villainy", some of Veigar's schemes to cause terror and destruction have proven to be surprisingly helpful in some cases. In "The True and Ghastly Tale of the Beast of Boleham Tower", he's extremely confused by the rural townsfolk thanking him for successfully shoving out the tyrannical warlords in the area, who even allow him to continue his "terror," and he's left none the wiser.
  • Odd Friendship: Originally, the official website listed Veigar as friends with Lulu, the Fae Sorceress. No details from Riot have yet to appear about this bizarre development. Legends of Runeterra also reveals him to be on good terms with Senna, despite them having no real links to each other in lore (although, in-game, the two of them are built to synergize with each other).
    Senna: Oh yeah, it's Veigar!
    Veigar: Lord Veigar, thank you. And hello, Senna.
  • Oh, Crap!: Veigar's Omega Squad skin's recall animation has him priming a missile launcher, but once he hits the Big Red Button, it only launches a few inches and starts beeping faster. He doesn't say a word, but he's clearly scrambling for the evac to get him the hell out of there.
  • Poke the Poodle: Veigar seeks to impose the same level of diabolical tyranny as his former master on the world, but he doesn't seem anywhere near capable enough to actually impose it. Some of his "evil schemes" are reasonably destructive, such as burning pastures and blowing up the mansion of a local baron, but other times they come up as inadvertently helpful, such as scattering bandit camps, overthrowing a much worse Evil Overlord, and slaying feral murk wolves threatening a nearby town.
  • Power of the Void: It's unknown if it's connected to The Void, but Veigar's magic certainly looks the part. Dark Matter is... well... Dark Matter, Event Horizon twists the edges of space, and Primordial Burst refers to the Big Bang.
  • Powerful, but Inaccurate: Dark Matter is an incredibly strong AOE ability, but it has a long delay on cast that's clearly telegraphed by the growing shadow on the floor and the distinct sound it makes. Similarly, Event Horizon is one of the longest stuns in the game, but careful placement is required to ensure that the target(s) actually run into the wall or are at least trapped within its confines to limit their movement.
  • Purple Is Powerful: The most prominent color in his palette, used to emphasize his arcane mastery and Evil Overlord image (not that the latter is really helped by it).
  • Really 700 Years Old: Yordles have extremely long lifespans, and Veigar is at least old enough to have served Morderkaiser when he still resided in the Immortal Bastion, meaning he's older than Noxus, the nation that was built around it after his original death.
  • Reference Overdosed: Every single quote of the Final Boss Veigar Skin either is or is at least based on a video game quote. Also, his giant gauntlet largely resembles a Power Glove, and he appears to type in the Konami Code for his recall animation.
  • Retcon: Following the game's mass Continuity Reboot, Veigar's backstory had been significantly changed, with the most drastic change being the terms of his imprisonment and how his mind broke; instead of being imprisoned by random Noxian soldiers for cruel kicks, he was enslaved by Mordekaiser to serve as his go-to magic expert, blocking his return to Bandle City.
  • Right Hand of Doom: He wears a (relatively) massive gauntlet seemingly made for hand to hand combat. This is probably because it looks more evil.
  • Shadowed Face, Glowing Eyes: Being a visual spoof of a Final Fantasy Black Mage, he has this look, with a giant wizard hat and cloak along with Supernatural Gold Eyes. For a while, it was kept ambiguous as to whether his face was supposed to be in a dark silhouette or not, but it was confirmed with his hatless Omega Squad skin that he really is a black, furry yordle with naturally monochrome eyes.
  • Small Name, Big Ego: For all his talk about his immense power (and calling himself things like "Great Master of Evil"), he's yet to do any of the villainy he wants to do so badly. In the Japanese dub, he calls himself ore-sama, meaning "My Most Serene Highness".
  • Squishy Wizard: Not a lot in terms of defense, both in his health pool or direct protection other than his stun.
  • Supernatural Gold Eyes: He normally gives off the impression of glowing monochrome eyes covered in shadow à la Final Fantasy's Black Mage, but as revealed in his Omega Squad skin, his eyes actually do look like that in daylight, and can be rather expressive.
  • Villain Song: No instrumental, but in Legends of Runeterra, should the player idle while the Tenor of Terror and Bass of Burden are on the board, they'll sing a poem for their lord:
    There he stood on his balcony
    His palms crackling with pure agony
    He looked down below, and lo did he see
    world, laughing in ecstacy!
    So he smote, and he broke those puny fools!
    He razed, and ruined with magic most cruel!
    They screamed as he raised their staff to the stars
    and roared, "Fear me world, for I am Lord Veigar!"
  • Villain with Good Publicity: Played with. The citizens of Boleham love Veigar for destroying much worse threats to them than he is, but pretend to hate him to let him keep up with the illusion of being an intimidating evil overlord.
  • Vocal Evolution: Veigar's voice in League of Legends is already decidedly high-pitched and unthreatening, and in Legends of Runeterra, it's even higher and arguably hammier than before.
  • The Von Trope Family: Baron Von Veigar, probably named as such because it's more intimidating.
  • Wingding Eyes: Omega Squad Veigar's eyes are a lot more expressive than in other skins, changing shape depending on the scenario, including but not limited to: starry eyes of excitement while casting Dark Matter, >_< eyes (complete with plugging his ears with his fingers) while using Primordial Burst, hearts while being charmed, spirals while being stunned, and Xs when slain. Using his joke emote will cycle through all of them.
  • Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: He was just an innocent yet inquisitive member of a cheerful furry race, driven insane and power-mad from isolation while imprisoned by Mordekaiser.

    Vel'Koz, the Eye of the Void 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/velkoz_originalloading.jpg
"Knowledge through...disintegration."

Voiced by: Erik Braa (English), Miguel Zúñiga (European Spanish), Alejandro Villeli (Mexican Spanish), Kenji Nomura (Japanese), Leonardo Santhos (Brazilian Portuguese), Beom-Ki Hong (Korean), Alexander Noskov (Russian)

"Only by deconstruction is truth revealed."

It is unclear if Vel’Koz was the first Voidborn to emerge on Runeterra, but there has certainly never been another to match his level of cruel, calculating sentience. While his kin devour or defile everything around them, he seeks instead to scrutinize and study the physical realm—and the strange, warlike beings that dwell there—for any weakness the Void might exploit. But Vel’Koz is far from a passive observer, striking back at threats with deadly plasma, or by disrupting the very fabric of the world itself.

Vel'Koz is an Artillery Mage champion who excels at poking enemies from afar before unleashing a devastating beam of true damage that easily melts through even the sturdiest foes.
  • His passive, Organic Deconstruction, causes Vel'Koz's abilities to mark enemies they damage with Deconstruction for a few seconds, stacking up to three times. Once a target reaches three stacks, they are consumed to deal bonus true damage. Vel'Koz's basic attacks refresh the stacks' duration.
  • With his first ability, Plasma Fission, Vel'Koz fires a plasma bolt in a target direction that damages and slows the first enemy it hits. When the projectile hits, reaches the end of its path or the ability is reactivated, it splits in two separate bolts that fire in opposite directions, applying the same effects to the first enemy each bolt hits. Each bolt that kills an enemy restores some of Vel'Koz's mana.
  • His second ability, Void Rift, passively stores charges over time, up to two. When activated, Vel'Koz spends a charge to open up a rift to the Void that cuts through the ground in a target direction, damaging enemies in its path. After a short delay, the rift closes and explodes, damaging enemies inside it once again.
  • His third ability, Tectonic Disruption, sends a shockwave to a target location that explodes once it arrives, damaging and knocking-up enemies inside. Enemies close to Vel'Koz are instead knocked away from him.
  • With his ultimate ability, Lifeform Disintegration Ray, Vel'Koz channels for a few seconds as he fires a massive, devastating laser beam in front of him, heavily damaging and slowing enemies in its path over the duration. The laser slowly follows the cursor, allowing Vel'Koz to readjust its trajectory as needed. Additionally, this ability also passively causes enemies damaged by his Organic Deconstruction passive to be marked as Researched for a few seconds; Researched enemies take true damage from Lifeform Disintegration Ray.

Vel'Koz's alternate skins include Battlecast Vel'Koz, Arclight Vel'Koz, Definitely Not Vel'Koz, Infernal Vel'Koz, Blackfrost Vel'Koz, and Bee'Koz.

In season 3 of Teamfight Tactics, Vel'Koz is a 4 cost Void Sorcerer. With his Lifeform Disintegration Ray ability, he channels a ray of energy that sweeps across the battlefield over 2.5 seconds, dealing magic damage per second to enemies hit. He was removed alongside the other Void champions in the Return to the Stars mid-set update. He returns in season 5 using his Arclight Vel'Koz skin as a Tier 4 Redeemed Spellweaver. Lifeform Disintegration Ray returns as his ability though with a few key differences; rather than sweeping across the board, Vel'Koz focuses the beam in the direction of the enemy closest to the center of the battlefield, which also widens over the duration of the channel. Vel'Koz will also only quickly rotate the beam if there are no enemies in the area. He was removed in season 6, returning in season 8 using his Blackfrost Vel'Koz skin as a Tier 3 Threat. His new Frozen Tomb ability blasts the enemy that dealt the most damage that round, dealing continuous magic damage and stunning them for a few seconds. Enemies hit by the ability cannot be targeted by it again for a few seconds afterward. He was removed in the Glitched Out!! mid-set update, returning to his base skin in season 9 as a Tier 3 Void Multicaster Sorcerer. His Plasma Fission ability fires a plasma bolt that deals magic damage to the first enemy it, then splits into two separate bolts travelling in opposite directions, dealing reduced damage to each successive enemy they pass through.
  • Armor-Piercing Attack: His passive causes him to do a burst of True Damage every time he hits a target with 3 abilities in rapid succession, which ignores any form of armor or magic resist. In addition, after triggering his passive on a champion, for a short time afterwards his ultimate also deals true damage to them, making him highly suited for melting through tanks that'd normally laugh off his magic damage.
  • Ascended Meme: In his Champion Spotlight the summoner playing Vel'Koz is named "Tentakill".
  • Beyond the Impossible: Apparently, his test subjects have a less than zero chance of survival.
  • Blue-and-Orange Morality: As expected with a Void champion. There isn't a single tone of satisfaction or glee in his description of analyzing the combustion point of humans, or concluding that the pitch of their screams is the best way to determine a human's gender. He finds elbows obscene however.
  • Bizarre Alien Biology: Played straight and inverted. He's weird because he's a floating telepathic tentacle monster with an eyeball in its mouth that shoots lasers. He thinks human biology is strange for reasons like having an internal skeleton, the fact all of our internal organs are vital, and skin and limbs aren't transferable.
  • The Comically Serious: Sure, he knows what humor is, but he hasn't quite understood the spirit.
  • Combat Tentacles: While not as physically-inclined as most examples, Vel'Koz does seem to use them to cast his abilities and to fire beams for his autoattacks, so they fit the spirit of the trope.
  • Converging-Stream Weapon: His ultimate has him combine one beam from each tentacle with the one from his big eye into a single, devastating attack.
  • Cuteness Proximity: He's surprised to find that this is even a thing!
  • Death Ray: His ultimate, Life Form Disintegration Ray, has him fire a beam of "infinite energy", which follows the cursor, and damages and slows its victims.
  • Difficult, but Awesome: Vel'Koz has enough damage to melt entire teams by himself, but has subpar crowd control and no escapes. As a result playing Vel'Koz to his fullest requires being good at positioning and more importantly being able to recognize openings and exploiting them on the fly.
    • Plasma Fission by itself is a rather unremarkable skillshot that deals good damage and slows the target...but it also splits in two at a 90° angle upon reaching max range, impact, or reactivation. Careful timing and angling of the attack can detonate it so that the split shots strike their targets at unpredictable angles, or even at a range beyond what the original shot could have managed.
  • The Dreaded: He's an Eldritch Abomination Mad Scientist from the Eldritch Location of the Void.. And yet he doesn't quite understand why this makes others dread him.
  • Earthquakes Cause Fissures: One of his abilities, Void Rift, creates a fissure in the ground at the target location. For added horror, this fissure is also a portal to the Void.
  • Eldritch Abomination: As with all voidborn creatures; Vel'Koz represents a much more primal representation of the Void, lacking the terrestrial traits of champs like Kha'Zix and Kog'Maw who've adapted to living in Runeterra. Everything about him is alien and unemotive, making him almost impossible to relate to as a living being.
  • Enemy Scan: His purpose in a nutshell: He's on Valoran to gather information on everything and everyone. How does he scan other stuff? By firing his laser at it. Said laser tend to make dust piles of whatever it hits, but it provides Vel'Koz with way more data on the subject than should be feasible. Thus, by disintegrating a rabbit, he's able to determine that it is nocturnal, has great sense of hearing, is a mammal, breeds like no tomorrow and is incredibly weak.
  • Energy Weapon: Vel'Koz's ultimate ability is a powerful laser attack, which can be aimed with the mouse cursor.
  • Evil Laugh: He has 3 very creepy laughs, befitting of a Mad Scientist-like being.
  • Evil Sounds Deep: His voice is just slightly less deep than Cho'Gath's, and is much smoother than any of the other Void champions. This doesn't make him any less creepy, at all.
  • Eye Beams: His ultimate could count as this, as it projects from the large eye in his mouth.
  • Eyes Do Not Belong There: In addition to the three normal eyes, Vel'Koz has one large, Eye of Sauron-style eye inside his mouth.
  • Eye Scream: His updated lore and story gives us a new method for his info gathering: Ramming a tentacle into his victims eye and violating their mind.
  • Faceless Eye: Actually one eye with three smaller eyes, but you get the idea.
  • Faux Affably Evil: In his own way, Vel'Koz comes across as weirdly polite. Of course, he's also a Mad Scientist with a complete disregard for life - human or otherwise -, so make of that what you will.
  • Glass Cannon: Like most mages, Vel'Koz can decimate enemies from a distance with his abilities, in addition to being able to melt tanks with his true damage, but any that can weather his attacks and get to him can kill him easily due to his low health and lack of escapes.
  • Home Sweet Home: He really does miss the darkness of the void.
  • Humans Through Alien Eyes: Essentially the theme of his character. Vel'Koz finds common biological knowledge and facts about humans (like that when bisected both halves die and can't be reattached) alien and constantly takes notes of them.
  • Hurricane of Puns: The team at Riot hinted at his release with a lot of eye-related puns. The forum community fired back with many others, including "Tentakill" and the fact that the leaked images featured Vel'Koz being tested against Annie.
  • It Will Be Spared: Unlike the rest of the Void-born who have primal urges so strong they dictate everything they do, Vel'Koz, thanks to having an urge for obtaining knowledge about everything, is capable of realizing that there are some things the void shouldn't just consume/destroy as the objects can provide more knowledge intact - like Zilean's time-affected tools in his tower for instance. He's willing to go to great lengths to ensure whatever fits this trope is preserved - even turning on his own kin to protect it.
  • I Want My Mommy!: Apparently what his subjects tend to cry for.
  • Kaiju: Vel'Koz in his splash arts is massive.
  • Light 'em Up: Arclight Vel'Koz.
  • Mad Scientist/The Smart Guy: Zigzags between the two. Every creature from the void has some basic urge driving them onward: Cho'Gath and Rek'Sai are destructive, Kog'Maw is hungry, Kha'Zix never wants to stop evolving and Vel'Koz will never stop obtaining knowledge through disintegration. When considering this, he's more along the lines of The Smart Guy of the Void than an outright Mad Scientist - but try to explain that to his test subjects.
  • Meaningful Name: As shown in a pre-game trivia bit, his name is Shuriman for "To Learn, By Unmaking".
  • Mind Probe: His attacks, including his disintegration rays are this, absorbing information as they break the target down physically. Demonstrated horrifically in "A Different Hunger", a story from the POV of a soldier encountering him:
    I am Hennis Kydarn, a warrior and a spear of Tokogol. I refused to give it the satisfaction of my cries, even as its tentacle knifed down through my eye. There was no pain
    as I work. The analysis can inflict physical pain, should I desire it, but that is not critical here. I have learned much of pain, and its uses. This one’s information is precious, as all knowledge is. A settlement, interactions, castes. A particular female of the species, and offspring... This one resists my analysis of those, but it is a simple thing to overcome.
  • Monster Suit: His death animations (and recall for his Arclight skin) seem to imply that Vel'Koz is actually just the one, big Sauron-like eye. On-death, he "ejects" from his body and zips off, presumably to go get a new body.
  • Power Echoes: His voice is quite echo-ey, giving off a minor Voice of the Legion effect. His voice can also bring to mind The Voice of Chaos Undivided's voice as well.
  • Power Floats: He obviously isn't slithering around on that lower tentacle of his.
  • Punctuation Shaker: As is typical of Void monsters, his name is two syllables split by an apostrophe.
  • Resource Reimbursement: Plasma Fission fires an energy bolt that splits into two in a perpendicular fashion. If any instance of the bolt kills an enemy, he's able to restore a chunk of his mana.
  • Robot Me: Battlecast Vel'Koz, keeping with the theme of some of other robotic Void champions.
  • Soft-Spoken Sadist: This is a guy who will bend your bones until they snap, heat your flesh until it melts, make you scream to determine your gender, rip off your skin to transfer it onto another creature, and find you really, really, repulsive. And he'll do so without a hint of sadism or satisfaction. To him, figuring out which of your organs are non-vital as he removes them one by one while you're still alive is just another day on the job outside of his beloved Void.
  • Squishy Wizard: Like Lux, Veigar, Xerath, and all the Squishy Wizards before him, Vel'Koz has devastating spells at long ranges as well as disabling mechanisms to keep enemies at bay. Should these fail to protect him, his lack of mobility and fragility basically ensure that he's dead.
  • Super Prototype: Vel'Koz was one of the first Voidborn summoned into Runeterra by The Watchers, and partly because he was created specifically after their "image" (namely in their constant desire for surveillance in the world beyond The Void), he's also strong enough to have remained around for the longest.
  • Units Not to Scale: According to his introduction video and various pieces of art, Vel'koz is huge- you could fairly easily curl up and fit into the socket of his main eye and his tentacles are thicker than your entire body. In-game he's considerably scaled-down.
  • Wave-Motion Gun: His ultimate, the aptly named Life Form Disintegration Ray, fires a massive energy beam that deals constant damage to and slows all targets caught in it. And it hurts, especially if the target is Researched.

    Vex, the Gloomist 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/vex_originalloading.jpg
"'Kay. See if I care."

Voiced by: Jeannie Tirado (English), Analiz Sanchez (Mexican Spanish), Honoka Kuroki (Japanese), Lina Mendes (Brazilian Portuguese), Bo-Ra Jang (Korean)

"Just...ughhhhh."

In the black heart of the Shadow Isles, a lone yordle trudges through the spectral fog, content in its murky misery. With an endless supply of teen angst and a powerful shadow in tow, Vex lives in her own self-made slice of gloom, far from the revolting cheer of the “normie” world. Though she lacks ambition, she is quick to strike down color and happiness, stopping all would-be interlopers with her magical malaise.

Vex is a Burst Mage champion who controls the battlefield with her potent shadow magic, punishing foes for jumping around too much and spreading fear into anyone that crosses her path.
  • Vex's passive, Doom n' Gloom, has two effects:
    • Doom periodically empowers Vex's next basic ability, causing it to interrupt dashes and fear enemies it hits, forcing them to slowly run away from Vex.
    • Gloom marks all enemies who use dashes or blinks close to Vex. Her basic attacks against them consume the mark, dealing bonus damage and refunding part of Doom's cooldown.
  • With her first ability, Mistral Bolt, Vex launches a wave of darkness that deals damage and triggers Gloom marks on all enemies it hits. After traveling a part of its distance, the wave becomes faster, but more narrow.
  • Her second ability, Personal Space, grants Vex a damage absorbing shield and fires a shockwave that damages and triggers Gloom marks on all enemies around her.
  • With her third ability, Looming Darkness, Vex throws her Shadow to a target location, causing it to grow as it travels. On impact, Shadow deals damage, slows, and applies Gloom to all enemies it hits.
  • Her ultimate ability, Shadow Surge, flings the Shadow in a target direction, damaging and marking the first enemy champion it hits. After hitting an enemy, Vex can reactivate the ability to pull herself to them, dealing additional damage. If her target dies shortly after taking damage from Shadow Surge, Vex will be able to cast it again for a few seconds.

Vex's alternate skins include Dawnbringer Vex and Empyrean Vex. Wild Rift exclusively includes Bewitching Vex and Stargazer Vex.

In season 6 of Teamfight Tactics, Vex is a Tier 3 Yordle Arcanist. Her Personal Space ability grants herself a damage absorbing shield for a few seconds. If the shield lasts its entire duration without being destroyed, it deals magic damage to all enemies within two hexes; if it was destroyed, it deals a reduced amount of damage, but gives the ability a stacking percentage bonus to both its damage and shield amount for the rest of the round. She was removed in season 7, returning in season 8's Glitched Out!! mid-set update using her Empyrean Vex skin as a Tier 3 Riftwalker Mascot. Her Shadow Surge ability fires a blast that deals magic damage to her current target, with every third cast empowering the blast into a piercing projectile that deals the same damage to all enemies it passes through. She was removed in season 9, returning to her base skin in season 10 as a Tier 3 Emo Executioner. Her ability, Your Funeral, sends a shadow at her current target that stuns enemies in 1-hex radius, then deals magic damage in the same area once the stun expires.

In Legends of Runeterra, Vex is a 4-mana 5/4 dual Shadow Isles and Bandle City Yordle Champion with Fearsome that gives the strongest enemy a stack of Gloomnote  when she attacks. When you've given Gloom to units at least 5 times, Vex levels up, gaining +1/+1 and passively causing enemies that gain Gloom to gain an additional stack of Gloom. Her Champion Spell is Vex's Glare (2-mana Slow spell that gives a unit Gloom to draw a card). Her Shadow appears as a separate unit - a 5-mana 2/5 dual Bandle City and Shadow Isles follower with Fearsome that draws a copy of Vex when summoned and passively has +1 Power for each time you've given a unit Gloom.
  • Anti-Escape Mechanism: Vex could alternately be called "The Anti-Mobility Champion" as her subtitle. While champions with loads of crowd control aren't uncommon (and Vex has plenty for herself), she becomes inherently more powerful when against mobile enemies, with her passive allowed to activate more just from them dashing near her. Fragile Speedsters beware!
  • Anti-Villain: Vex is complicit in enabling the Ruination to get as bad as it did, but she herself is just an extremely broody teenage yordle that Viego goaded into his service. While she gets a semblance of satisfaction from spreading misery and despair through the event, she has neither the malice nor the ambition to do it herself, and treats the whole thing as a boring job she wants to get over with so she can return to moping. She's taken aback when the Sentinels insinuate to her that Viego's motivation for the Ruination is out of crazed love, and she decided to make no effort to save him upon his defeat. She also seeks no allegiance with Thresh (who since ended up taking the reins of the Black Mist) or Karthus (who also wants to spread death and destruction, but lost Vex at the "deathsinging" part).
  • Bad Is Good and Good Is Bad: She runs on this logic, only finding satisfaction in spreading negativity and sadness and being grossed-out by bright happiness. This is built off of her acknowledging that yordles are meant to be beings of life and happiness, yet for some reason, she's unable to feel satisfaction with either.
    (upon meeting Lux) "Oh no, happiness... and rainbows? I'm gonna barf twice..."
  • Boring, but Practical:
    • Riot describes her as "a MOBA champ that doesn't want to be a MOBA champ", specializing in making sure the enemy MOBA champs around her also can't be MOBA champs. On her own, Vex is a very simplistic mage, having some damage skillshots and crowd control without any really difficult mechanical bells and whistles, and also no mobility (aside from her exclusively aggressive ultimate) or serious tankiness to speak of. Where she really shines is her ability to directly empower herself through the presence of mobile champions; she lacks the ability to be a flashy carry that dominates games, but she excels at being a really effective anti-carry that can ruin a mobile enemy's day just by standing around them.
    • In LoR, Vex is one of the simpler Champions; she's just beatstick that doesn't do much other than debuff an enemy's stats when she attacks, and after leveling up, the only additional effect she gets is making the Gloom debuff stronger when applied. She makes up for this with solid stats at a reasonable cost and Fearsome to capitalize on the stat drops.
  • Break Them by Talking: In "The Meaning in Misery", she semi-intentionally does this to her uncle after he tries to understand why she doesn't want to come back home to her parents or other yordle kin. Her nihilistic spiel ends up being so dark and brutally honest that it drives her uncle to tears.
  • Brilliant, but Lazy: Her power is potent, to say the least, managing to augment Viego's power to the point where the Black Mist threatened the entire world of Runeterra. However, she lacks the motivation to do much evil herself, not even wanting to engage in sadism; not because she doesn't enjoy causing pain, but because she's too lazy to want to do it herself.
    "Ugghh, Shadowwww, carry meeee."
  • Casting a Shadow: She dabbles almost entirely in dark magics, including manipulation of the Black Mist, as well as having a Living Shadow accompanying her. Her Shadow is able to envelop that of her foes, and is able to drastically slow them and their hosts down.
  • Chain Lethality Enabler: Killing an enemy with Shadow Surge lets Vex cast it again onto a new target, refreshing every consecutive takedown. She can use this to go for a whole pentakill if played right.
  • Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Normally (and primarily with Vex's vanilla appearance), her abilities are colored a dark purple, but if her Doom n' Gloom passive is fully charged, they're instead depicted as a spectral green, signalling to the enemy that it will induce fear if they get hit by it.
  • Crutch Character: Downplayed; her damage and crowd control remain pretty significant after she gets her early power spike, but her scaling is below-average when compared to most mages, and her abilities are quite slow and telegraphed, which enemies are more likely to work around as the game goes on. This ironically means she has to rely more on her allies past the mid-game, as while her combos are not very reliable at starting major teamfights, they're still powerful at locking up and dooming enemies that her team has already buttered up for her with their own crowd control.
  • Death or Glory Attack: Shadow Surge allows Vex to tag onto an enemy champion within a long range, then dash onto it for damage, much like Lee Sin's Sonic Wave/Resonating Strike combo. This carries a lot more risk for Vex since she's not quite as suited to close-range engagement (her best tool is using a Doom-procced Personal Space to let her fear enemies on arrival, but she has no other escapes), but if it can kill the target, its cooldown resets and she can do the same thing onto multiple weakened enemies.
  • The Dragon: She serves as Viego's advisor and is responsible for allowing the Black Mist to have spread as enormously as it has during the Ruined King saga. Ironically, Viego holds her in much higher regards despite her personal lack of ambition, while Thresh wants to be seen as Viego's Number Two but is brushed off to the side for his conflicting aspirations.
  • Emo Teen: A yordle-shaped caricature of one; she dresses in dark colors, is perpetually gloomy and bored, and by her own word actually is a teenager who resents her nagging parents. It's almost an invocation of the trope as yordles are immortal and perceive "age" as a much more subjective thing than mortals.
    Vex: "Vex, honey, you're so much prettier when you smile! Vex, you'd feel happier if you wore brighter colors!" Well, this is the truth. This is the REAL ME. So just accept it. ...or don't. Whatever.
  • Emotion Bomb:
    • The fear-inducing portion of her passive ability is framed as being this — as it's charging up, the tooltip reads that "Vex is getting upset!", and then describing her as "upset" upon full charge.
    • In Rise of the Sentinels, she does a similar thing of using Shadow to induce a wave of despair into the Sentinels, slowing them down enough for her to make her getaway.
      Vex: Yeah, that's despair. Enjoy it. Or don't, see if I care.
  • Eviler than Thou: Vex calls Viego a "normie" for being motivated by love, finding his Villainous Virtues pathetic and incomprehensible. She is only prompted to stay by Viego when he promises he will continue to Ruin the world regardless of the success of his plan.
  • Flat Joy: She can't even muster much for her laugh emote (though Shadow certainly does, giving a silent, but hilariously flippant point towards the enemy).
  • Good Parents: Ironically, despite her complaints about them, Vex's parents are actually quite supportive of her new abilities and appearance. Much to her dismay when she comes back to them following the Sentinels of Light event, trying to find something to make her miserable.
    Vex's Mother: Honey. We don’t understand... this.
    Vex's Father: But we love you unconditionally, and if you’re happy, we’re happy for you.
    Vex: (Rolling her eyes) You guys are the worst.
  • Hates Being Called Cute: Extending her distaste of the bright whimsy of her yordle kin, Vex dislikes the idea of it applying to herself.
  • Hates Everyone Equally: She isn't interested in getting along with anyone human, yordle, or any other race. She only marginally likes being around The Undead of the Shadow Isles, if only because they share in her misery and don't talk back.
    Vex: I should start a club for people who hate people! ...eh, but no one would show up.
  • Hidden Depths: Beyond being played for laughs, "The Meaning in Misery" greatly suggests that her eternally broody nature is built out of a genuine existential crisis. Being fully aware that yordles are beings of life, magic, and happiness doesn't gel with her inability to feel happiness and thus desire to spread it, with her intense nihilism being symptomatic of her being unable to parse any other purpose to her borderline oxymoronic existence.
  • Hypocrite: She hates that Viego is motivated by love yet her shadow implies in her joke line that she is in love with Viego by forming a heart shape when she brings him up.
  • It's All About Me: She has no special hatred for anyone but does not give a damn who she hurts either. She helped spread the Mist all across the world, undoubtedly killing thousands and not caring because she gets sweet delight over other people's misery.
  • I Work Alone: In stark contrast to other yordle champions that seek out some level of fellowship, Vex is directly asocial and desires just being alone with herself and her Shadow. Even with her partnership with Viego in spreading the Harrowing, she does so begrudgingly and just wants it to be finished so she can be alone again.
  • Irony: Both in gameplay and theme, Vex really hates enemies that won't stay still, with a kit built around punishing them for using dashes, so it's a little amusing that her own ultimate is also a dash, and one with resets in mind at that. Then again, as pointed out by Reav3, it's just the Shadow doing all the work in that regard.
  • Lack of Empathy: Vex has a problem with accepting love and happiness in any capacity, whether they be directed to herself or shared amongst others. At most, she gets a semblance of gratification when spreading death and chaos as it seems to be the only thing she sees as being a purpose to her life, but even then, her seeing Viego as motivated by love is anathema to the result. Even when she reduces her uncle to tears by her philosophy, she's neither regretful nor satisfied, merely content that he's no longer going to bother her in her brooding. What's especially strange about Vex is that yordles are inherently Purity Personified, so the fact she completely lacks the will to connect with others beyond her very narrow desires of darkness is almost paradoxical.
  • Living Shadow: Vex treats her own shadow as her Only Friend — it's black (her favorite color), silent, and just as gloomy as her — and she learned to animate it using the power of the Black Mist, since turning into her own personal conduit for using black magics. Funnily enough, because Shadow is such a major part of Vex, it will still be around even if you disable shadows in the game's graphical settings. In Legends of Runeterra, Shadow appears as a separate card from Vex herself.
  • Locked Out of the Loop: Her involvement in spreading of the Black Mist isn't built on honest knowledge where Viego's concerned — she's under the impression that the Ruination is his favor to her and her desire to make the world depressing and ugly. When the Rookie tells her that he's actually doing it in a twisted scheme to reclaim his lover, she both balks at it but is also left unnerved at the idea that Viego would "do something so... uncool."
  • Meaningful Name: Touched with a bit of irony; "vex" is a verb meaning to annoy, frustrate, or otherwise bother someone, exactly the sort of thing the champion Vex doesn't want others to do to her. It also happens to sound rather close to "hex", as in what she can do to others. As it turns out, Vex chose the name herself specifically because it sounds dark and eerie and matches her vibe.
  • Not a Morning Person: Alluded to with a few of her respawn quotes, done in the style of a grumpy teen getting woken up by their parents for school (accompanied by her own shadow poking her awake).
    Vex: Noooo leave me alone, I'm sleeping....
  • Only Friend: Shadow is the only one she'll confide in or show anything resembling affection.
    "You know what, Shadow? Sometimes... I almost don't hate you."
    "And then I told her, 'Get outta my room!' And she said, 'This is my house, young lady and'... Oh, hang on, Shadow. I'll finish this later."
  • Pet the Dog:
  • Powers Do the Fighting: Most of her action wherever she goes consists of her just waiting for her Living Shadow to do something on her behalf. When in the Freljord, Shadow digs into the ice to retrieve an artifact for Viego, but once the Sentinels show up, she begins digging herself as her Shadow begins fighting them off.
    (upon meeting an enemy champion) "Another person to kill... Shadow, can you handle it?"
  • Precision F-Strike: In the Portuguese dub, one of her lines is "Que foda! Digo... tanto faz..." which translates to "Fuck yeah! I mean... whatever." This seems to be a case of translation wonk (intentional or not) as the original English line is the far more innocuous "Awesome! I mean... whatever..."
  • Punch-Clock Villain: Vex served Viego mostly because she doesn't have much else to do and he promised her a world of sadness for her to revel in. She ended up coming close to leaving him once she discovered that his actual plan was to use the Ruination to rescue his love, ironically because doing things for love is too "normie" for her tastes. Once the Sentinels defeated him, she gave them a free portal back to Runeterra since she otherwise had no real reason not to.
    Vex: (to Viego) I don't have to listen to you, Viego. You're not my real dad.
  • Sadist: A very downplayed, understated example by the fact that she isn't very interested in acting upon it unless someone really needs her to (and even then, she'll make her beleaguered annoyance with it clear), but Vex admits that one of the only things that brings her joy is spreading despair.
  • Schmuck Bait: Doom n' Gloom practically encourages Vex players to try and bait enemies into diving her, as its fear not only leaves enemies vulnerable, it also overrides any dashing abilities. One of the worst possible outcomes in trying to assassinate Vex is realizing she still has a fear-proc'd Personal Space to stop you dead in your tracks, leaving her ample time to counterattack.
  • The Shadow Knows: Vex's Living Shadow is quite lively and mostly correlates to how Vex herself reacts, yet in a few of her animations, its action doesn't correspond to the emotion Vex outwardly displays, giving her words a fair bit of additional subtext. As a lighthearted example, her joke emote shows a clear disconnect between what she says about Viego and what she really thinks.
    "Oh, Viego... (Shadow beats like a heart) is okay... (Shadow snaps up in surprise) I mean, he's whatever... I guess..." (Shadow reaches "behind" its head)
  • The Silent Bob: Vex's shadow is completely silent, but that doesn't stop it from being arguably even more expressive than its host, conveying a lot of emotion and snark through its wild animations separate from her.
  • Squishy Wizard: Vex has low innate health, lacks mobility beyond her Shadow Surge (which is designed to be an aggressive Finishing Move), and her self-peel mostly comes from Personal Space and the conditional fear-inducing ability of her Doom n' Gloom passive. They can sufficiently keep her safe in a pinch, but if an enemy is really dedicated to popping her, she can get punished really hard.
  • Straw Nihilist: Generally Played for Laughs as per her Emo Teen shtick; she only seems to find a modicum of purpose in despair, and finds things like happiness (or rather, other peoples' happiness) incredibly icky.
    (encountering an enemy champion) "Life sucks, but at least I'm not you."
  • Token Evil Teammate: Vex is an oddity among yordles in many ways, and is the only known one definitively played as an antagonist (sans maybe Veigar and Kled, but the former is a Harmless Villain and the latter is literally Ax-Crazy). Granted, she isn't exactly played as malicious, but she allies with Viego and doesn't seem to really care about the consequences of it.
  • Travel to Projectile: Shadow Surge sends Shadow flying forward and damaging the first enemy champion hit. Then once Vex recasts, she goes dashing towards that enemy for extra damage, and then time to lay down a full burst-damage combo.
  • Vile Villain, Laughable Lackey: Viego and most of his underlings are played deadly seriously. While Vex is still dreadfully powerful and responsible for the success of Viego's plan, her character is more played for humor.
  • Villainous Crush: Her shadow implies she has one on Viego in her joke line by forming a heart shape when she brings him up, despite Vex claiming he's just "okay".
  • Villain Teleportation: In Rise of the Sentinels, the Sentinels could only directly teleport to other Sentinel bases using the Wayfinder, but Vex was able to conjure portals for herself across Runeterra seemingly to her whim, allowing her to get a few steps ahead of them. During the climax, Viego gets her to create a portal leading back to Camavor which only he and a few Sentinels are able to make through, but once he gets defeated and imprisoned, she helps teleport the Sentinels back.
  • Who Wants to Live Forever?: "The Meaning in Misery" greatly implies that not only is she fascinated with death, she'd in fact welcome it. The story illustrates yordles as inherently being spirits of life and happiness that are unable to die, and her eternal broodiness is built on her inability to find satisfaction from any of that. Ironically, one of her lines while respawning is "That... wasn't as cool as I thought it'd be."

    Vi, the Piltover Enforcer 

Violet "Vi"

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/vi_originalloading4.jpg
"Punch first. Ask questions while punching."

Voiced by: Cia Court (English), Adelaida López (European Spanish), Romina Marroquín Payró (Mexican Spanish), Yuu Kobayashi (Japanese), Tatiane Keplmair (Brazilian Portuguese), Min-Jeong Yeo (Korean), Irina Kireeva (Russian)
Appears in: Legends of Runeterra, Arcane

"Do you want a punch to the face or the gut? Wait, I got two fists, it can be both!"

Once a criminal from the mean streets of Zaun, Vi is a hotheaded, impulsive, and fearsome woman with only a very loose respect for authority figures. Growing up all but alone, Vi developed finely honed survival instincts as well as a wickedly abrasive sense of humor. Now working with the Wardens of Piltover to keep the peace, she wields mighty hextech gauntlets that can punch through walls and suspects with equal ease.

Vi is a Diver champion who is suited to charge fist-first into the fray, knocking aside any opponents standing between her and her target to mercilessly pummel them down.
  • Her passive, Blast Shield, periodically grants Vi a shield based on her max health when her abilities hit an enemy.
  • With her first ability, Vault Breaker, Vi starts winding-up a punch for a few seconds, moving at reduced speed. When the ability is reactivated, Vi launches herself in a target direction, damaging enemies in her path and stopping upon hitting an enemy champion, knocking them back. The range and damage of the punch increase the longer she charged it.
  • Her second ability, Denting Blows, passively causes Vi's every third consecutive basic attack on the same target to deal bonus damage based on their max health, increase her attack speed and reduce the target's armor for a few seconds, and reduce the cooldown of Blast Shield.
  • Her third ability, Relentless Force, passively stores charges over time, up to two. When activated, Vi spends a charge to make her next basic attack deal bonus damage to the target and enemies in a cone behind them.
  • With her ultimate ability, Cease and Desist, Vi targets a nearby enemy champion and starts chasing them down, knocking aside and damaging other enemies in her path. When she reaches her target, Vi uppercuts them, knocking them up into the air, and then slams them back down into the ground, dealing heavy damage.

Vi's alternate skins include Neon Strike Vi, Officer Vi, Debonair Vi, Demon Vi, Warring Kingdoms Vi, PROJECT: Vi, Heartbreaker Vi, PsyOps Vi, Arcane Vi, Heartache Vi, and Primal Ambush Vi. Legends of Runeterra exclusively includes Gilded Vi, Wild Rift exclusively includes Crystal Rose Vi and Superhero Vi.

In season 1 of Teamfight Tactics, Vi is a Tier 3 Hextech Brawler. Her ability is Assault and Battery, which targets the farthest enemy - Vi dashes towards them, damaging and knocking aside all enemies in her way, then deals damage and knocks up her main target. She was removed in season 2. She returns in season 3 with the same cost and ability, now using her PROJECT skin and bearing the Cybernetic buff to replace Hextech. In season 4, she is reworked into a Tier 2 Warlord Brawler using her Warring Kingdoms skin. Her ability was changed to Denting Blow, which sends a cone-shaped blast through her target, damaging and reducing the armor of enemies hit for a few seconds. She was removed in season 5, returning in season 6 with the same cost and ability as an Enforcer Sister Bruiser. Her Sister origin is a trait unique to her and Jinx that gives each of them different bonuses when played together. In Vi's case, the cone for her Denting Blow ability has its area of effect extended by an additional two hexes. In the Neon Nights mid-set update, she is promoted to a Tier 4 unit, she uses her base skin and her Sister trait is replaced with the Rival origin, which is also uniquely shared with Jinx but instead grants them unique bonuses when only one of them is deployed on your board at a time; Vi's new bonus from this trait instead sets her spell's mana cost to a reduced amount. Her ability was changed to Piltover Pulverizer, which works differently in a cycle of three casts. The first cast grants Vi a shield while damaging enemies in a cone behind her target, the second cast functions identically aside from Vi also dashing through her target, while the third cast has Vi carry her target forward and slam them to the ground, dealing increased damage to all enemies in the impact zone, after which the cycle resets. She was removed in season 7, returning in season 8 using her PsyOps Vi skin as a Tier 2 Underground Brawler Aegis. Her Blast Shield ability shields herself and reduces the armor of nearby enemies for a few seconds, then deals bonus percent attack damage in a small area around her. In season 9, she returns to using her base skin with the same ability as a Tier 2 Piltover Bruiser. In season 10 she uses her Heartache Vi skin and is a Tier 1 Punk Mosher. Her ability, The Harder They Fall, strikes her target for physical damage, briefly stunning them and reducing a flat amount of armor for the rest of combat. The damage is increased if the target's current health is higher than Vi's.

In Legends of Runeterra, Vi is a 5-mana 2/4 Piltover & Zaun Champion with Tough and Challenger, who gains +1/+0 whenever you play a card while she's either in play or your hand, up to a maximum of +8/+0. When she strikes something while her power is at 10 or higher she levels up, losing her power-stacking passive and instead gaining +8/+1, and dealing 5 damage to the enemy Nexus whenever she strikes a unit while attacking. Her Champion Spell is Vi's Vault Breaker (3-mana Burst spell that gives an ally +2 Power for a round and generates a Fleeting copy of itself in hand).

Vi is one of the primary protagonists of Riot's first animated LoL series, Arcane. While the series is considered extended canon to the Runeterra universe, any info added from the series into this section should be carefully compared with the current official canon lore first, before being added. For tropes about Vi, exclusive to the TV series, go here.
  • Ascended Meme:
    • One of her quotes when she lands her ultimate is "Get dunked," a common expression among the community for when a champion completely obliterates an enemy.
    • The lyrics of her themesong references flipping tables, a meme on the forums for whenever the playerbase is upset.
    • In episode 9 of Arcane season 1, during Vi's Bar Brawl against Sevika she uses her gauntlets to flip a large table up into the air then punch it towards her opponent, smashing her back against the wall.
  • Arch-Enemy: Urgot. Jinx annoys Vi (admittedly while causing massive carnage and destruction) but Urgot is a monster who was responsible for the death of one of Vi's childhood friends.
  • Attack! Attack! Attack!: Vi's entire kit revolves around bashing someone's face in, with no real escape routes other than simply walking away (or, if the fight lasts long enough for Vault Breaker to cool down again, Qing out, but that's easy to block or interrupt while she's charging it).
  • Badass in a Nice Suit: Debonair Vi gives us a Rare Female Example.
  • Battle Couple: With Caitlyn. The have built-in mechanics that encourage synergizing in the main game. They also take on Urgot and his cult together in the "Warriors" cinematic.
  • Boisterous Bruiser: She charges into the fray and starts punching away, and her attitude shows that she's having the time of her life.
    "One girl wrecking crew!"
    "Boom, baby!"
    "Here comes the punchline!"
  • Boring, but Practical: Vi is not a very mechanically intensive champion, with two different options at dive-punching enemies (a charged-up skillshot and an instant point-and-click ultimate), with the rest of her combat mostly coming down to pummeling enemies with her basic attacks and waiting for the enemy to fall before she does. In the right hands, this is all she needs to make a serious dent in the enemy team — her aforementioned ultimate is considered one of the most powerful in the game by virtue of delivering near-unavoidable lockdown, with nothing short of killing her being able to stop her from reaching her target for a brutal smackdown.
  • Blood Knight: Accepted Caitlyn's invitation because it gave her an opportunity to do all the fighting she wanted without having to worry about negative attention from the law. Arcane suggests she had other reasons, though we have yet to see her join the Enforcers in that canon.
  • Bragging Theme Tune: "Here Comes Vi," her Image Song.
  • Butch Lesbian: Vi is the biggest Ladette in the game, refers to her partner Caitlyn as "Cupcake" in game and wears a suit in the otherwise all-male Debonair skin style. While Rioters had long hinted at it, her sexuality wasn't concretely stated until 2022, when Caitlyn and Vi were featured in a Pride Month art posted by Riot, confirming them as a couple. The two have since then been featured prominently together like full girlfriends.
    Kwazimoto: Let's say that Vi was trapped on a desert island and she found a genie's lamp. The genie needs a little time to recharge but can offer her a snack in the meantime (which is helpful, because she's nearly starving from being trapped on the island). The genie offers Vi the choice between a hot dog and a taco. Which one does Vi choose?
    Dinopawz: She eats the sausage in the taco. :-)invoked
    • Arcane spotlights Vi being into gals with her relationship to Cait getting more blatant. It's to the point where one piece of art for a crossover promotion just straight says that Vi needs to get home to Cait.
  • Cain and Abel: Jinx, her archrival and terror of Piltover, is also her sister. Whether Vi remembers this is unknown. Riot went back and forth on the issue for the longest time before Arcane finally confirmed it once and for all.
  • Casual Kink: She has a tendency to talk about her wet-dreams to a degree that is starting to irritate her co-workers.
  • Cool Shades: She has a pair on her forehead in her Neon Strike skin, then Officer Vi wears obligatory mirror shades. Performing her /taunt with her Neon Strike Vi will actually cause her to flip her shades up and down from her eyes to her forehead.
  • Cowboy Cop: Cares more about beating up criminals than actually arresting them. She also has a tendency to do things like smash through walls to chase down crooks faster or breaking their belongings to make them talk, something that's not particularly within-regulations. Several of her followers in LoR complain about her carelessness towards collateral damage.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: Like most Zaunites, she grew up having to fend for her life in an inhospitable environment, learning to fight and salvage relatively young. And if Arcane is indeed canon, she became estranged from her little sister, got hauled to prison for years at a young age, then had to confront her sister once the latter's Jinx persona took over.
  • Dragons Up the Yin Yang: Her Warring Kingdom skin gives her gauntlets a jade/gold dragon motif, complete with green fire. She also summons one while using her ultimate that follows her uppercut.
  • Dynamic Entry: Her ultimate is designed for picking out a key enemy target and running straight through their frontline to pin them down.
  • Expy:
    • Her metallic-motif visuals and abilities wouldn't be out of place in Borderlands. One of her abilities is even called Vault Breaker.
    • Her creative team specifically mentioned Kara "Starbuck" Thrace from Battlestar Galactica and Jack from Mass Effect as the primary basis for her character.
  • Fair Cop: While not quite as blatant as Caitlyn's (pre-visual update) miniskirted cop skin, Officer Vi's outfit still exposes her midriff and accentuates her breasts, more resembling something a stripper would wear than an officer of the law.
  • Foe-Tossing Charge: If you're between Vi and the target of her ultimate then get out of the way — if you don't then Vi will happily shove you out of the way without slowing down.
  • Foil: To Caitlyn; Caitlyn is a calm, collected, matter-of-fact Consummate Professional who likes to get things done as quickly and efficiently as possible, while Vi is a rude, aggressive, and violent Blood Knight who couldn't care less about doing a clean job as long as she gets a good fight out of it.
  • Friendly Enemy: There are special Easter eggs involving three unique quotes based on Caitlyn's ultimate if she's your ally or enemy Caitlyn targeting Vi. In addition, she has a unique taunt animation and quotes towards an enemy Caitlyn. Also, if both Caitlyn and Vi are in the same team and near each other, they are given a minor movement speed boost.
  • Gameplay and Story Integration:
    • Lore aside, Caitlyn and Vi make for a very potent duo on Summoner’s Rift. Case in point: Caitlyn's Ace in the Hole has two main weaknesses, her target leaving its range/vision and someone taking the shot for their teammate. Vi's Cease and Desist handily removes both of these, dashing straight to a target to hold them in place and pushing aside all enemies to give Caitlyn the clean shot! (Performing this combo even triggers one of three Easter Egg comments from Vi.)
      Vi: Yeah! Teamwork!
      Vi: High five, Cupcake!
      Vi: Boom! Headshot.
    • For many of the same reasons she synergizes with Cait, the same can apply to her sister Jinx: Jinx's wide arsenal of long-ranged immobilizing abilities can make Vi's gap-closing a lot easier, and then Vi can lock down their opponent to give Jinx time to ramp up her attack speed passive or finish them off with her Difficult, but Awesome ultimate.
  • Good Cop/Bad Cop: The bad cop to Caitlyn's good cop. The latter prefers to play by the book, unlike Vi's complete disregard for collateral damage.
  • Hunter Of Her Own Kind: After the mining facility incident where she came across her Power Fists, she returned to the life of crime by only stealing from other criminals.
  • If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him!: Caitlyn had to talk Vi down from summarily executing Urgot by dropping him to his death by reminding her that she's an officer of Piltover, not just a Zaunite thug.
  • Implacable Woman: Her ultimate locks on to an enemy champion and chases after them, becoming immune to disables and knocking aside any other champions in the way. Only killing her will stop her reaching her target.
  • Indy Ploy: Implied to be fond of these with a voice line:
    "Plan? I don't need a plan!"
  • Ironic Echo: Vi has a special voice-line that only triggers when she targets Jayce with her ult. One of Jayce's attack shouts is "Power slam!" Vi mocks him by shouting "Hey, Jayce! POWER SLAM!" as she spikes his face into the dirt.
  • Irony: To think a criminal infuriated with police brutality would grow up to become a cop known for police brutality.
  • Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: If she really means what she's saying from her selection line, then this is apparently how she gains intel.
  • Jack of All Stats: The developers intend to make her like this, giving her a decent mix of power, mobility, durability, and the ability to lock down and/or assassinate enemy champs. Though it is possible to make her a Lightning Bruiser with the correct item customization.
  • Jumped at the Call: A job consisting of beating up crooks without breaking the law? She accepted that in a heartbeat.
  • The Lad-ette: Rude, violent, coarse, and is always looking for a good fight or even just an opportunity to beat someone's ass. She apparently torments Harknor, the Desk-Warden at the prison, by describing, in vivid detail, the sex-filled dreams she has at night.
    "Hey, Harknor", she said to the desk-warden when she reached the cells. "What's so important Caitlyn has to drag me from an erotic dream about—- "
    "Ah, ah, stop right there", said Harknor without looking up from his elevated desk as he ran a finger down the list of prisoners brought in during the night. "I'm not in the mood to hear another of your lurid fantasies."
    "You sure?" grinned Vi, leaning on his desk and blowing a loose strand of pink hair from her eyes. "This was a good one. Had a plot and everything."
    "Quite sure," said Harknor, looking away and holding out the charge sheet.
  • The Lady's Favor: Art for Heartbreaker Vi has her holding a handkerchief (presumably Caitlyn's) in one of her gloves.
  • Laser-Guided Amnesia: Her lore and (written pre-Arcane) interactions with Lyte, Jinx, and Ekko imply that she may have amnesia that caused her to forget her earliest years as a citizen of Zaun.
  • Leitmotif: Her patch into the game was accompanied by a vocalized pop-punk piece on the log-in screen, matching her aggressive character to these rocking chords.
  • Lesbian Jock: She's one of the few female bruisers in League , being naturally strong, athletic, and a Butch Lesbian through and through. Heartache Vi goes further by portraying her as a high school jock with a crush on the preppy and girly Caitlyn.
  • Life-or-Limb Decision: Downplayed example in the "Warriors Season 2020" cinematic since it's not actually her limb- after one of her gauntlets is shot off by Urgot, he lodges the anchor for his Fear Beyond Death into the other one and starts to drag her into his crushers, forcing her to discard it to avoid death and leaving her weaponless. She then continues to kick ass with her bare knuckles.
  • Lightning Bruiser: Oh yes. She's similar to Riven in that she has dash abilities, high innate damage, and a mini-shield to improve her durability. Once she's built properly there's little that can stop a Vi from bashing her way through the frontline.
  • Megaton Punch: Her entire shtick with all of her abilities consisting of heavy single blows. Vault Breaker is a powerful dashing punch, Denting Blows makes every third punch deal extra damage, Relentless Force creates a shockwave whenever she hits, and then there's her ultimate which is a flying uppercut.
  • Money to Burn: More the act than the connotations: She sometimes destroys the ill-gotten gains she comes across. She doesn't need it, and by smashing it she pushes many a thief's Berserk Button.
  • Moses in the Bullrushes: According to a mad old sump-scrapper, he found Vi drifting alone in a bassinet big enough for two children before delivering her to the Hope House orphanage. Although the canonicity of this (or at least the "big enough for two children" part) is questionable after further lore changes.
  • Ms. Fanservice: Her default look is quite tame, but Neon Strike Vi is Sensual Spandex with prominent cleavage, while Officer Vi pulls out both cleavage and midriff. Much like Caitlyn's old look, it makes her look more like fetish fuel than a cop.
  • Muscles Are Meaningless: She doesn't have any especially distinct muscle mass, yet she's strong enough to wield giant gauntlets like they're nothing, and in the "Warriors 2020" cinematic, she's able to deliver a mean uppercut onto Urgot without them. Subverted in Arcane, where she clearly has visible muscles (even as a kid to some extent).
  • Mysterious Past: Prior to Arcane, her past was sort of a patchwork where a few significant parts were missing. We know that she was a Zaunite gang member/gang leader in her youth, but we don't know about what happened to her parents (and it's implied this is part of a big deal), or what happened in the gap between her disappearance and her suddenly emerging in Piltover as Caitlyn's partner. Much of that past was retconned thanks to Arcane, though it fills in a much more complete picture of her life and falling out with Jinx, as well as the beginnings of her partnership with Caitlyn.
  • Odd Couple: Caitlyn is a ranged carry who must play a bit defensively by sniping enemies from a long distance in order to dish out a lot of damage. On the other hand, Vi is an offensive "in your face" type of fighter who is more durable than Caitlyn and excels in a battle's frontline, dealing a large amount of damage while taking some heavy hits at the same time. Whether in the same lane or the same team, they make a VERY deadly combination.
  • Only Known By Her Nickname: Arcane revealed that Vi is in fact short for Violet, but nobody calls her that (with exception of her sister once in a moment of extreme distress), and it's not clear yet if she herself remembers.
  • Opposites Attract: With Caitlyn; Caitlyn is calm, elegant, was born into a rich family, and prefers to keep things by the book. Vi is brash, energetic, born into a life of hardship in Zaun, and isn't afraid to play loose with the rules. Despite how different they are, she and Cait naturally complement each other.
  • Origins Episode: Arcane serves as this to both Vi and her sister Jinx, such as confirming that they are sisters, and how they came to be enemies.
  • Overshadowed by Awesome: Intellectually speaking. She's smart enough to modify her gauntlets, but considering how many supergeniuses come from Piltover, that doesn't seem as impressive as it might otherwise be.
  • Police Brutality: While she tends to stop short of killing the people she's sent after, there's nonetheless a running theme of her using excessive force as means of interrogation.
  • Power Fist: Two of 'em - best described as Power Armor for the arms. Vi is quite proud of them, seeing how she's modified and repaired them over and over after she took them from the mining rig, and as such she has a bit of "Don't touch" attitude towards having them studied by others.
  • Punctuated Pounding: Although she's not so much speaking as she is kiaiing.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: The red to Caitlyn's blue. While Caitlyn is a By The Book Cold Sniper with a British Accent, Vi is a brash, aggressive Ladette who speaks in a rougher voice and often Trash Talks her opponents.
  • Reformed Criminal: A former thief and con who became a warden after meeting Caitlyn.
  • Required Secondary Powers: We get a glimpse of how much arm strength Vi has to have to lift her colossal steel mechanical fists when she knocks Urgot on his back with a single uppercut in Warriors.
  • Screaming Warrior: Less so than champions like Olaf, but still punctuates each of her strikes with a kiai-like shout.
  • Sensual Spandex: Her skintight, figure-hugging and practically unarmored Neon Strike skin is this.
  • Separated at Birth: Her in-game bio strongly suggested she had a sibling who was lost when they were babies. Riot officially confirmed in Arcane that Jinx was indeed her little sister, and surprisingly to little fanfare (presumably because even before the show, their relationship was so blatantly hinted at that it was already accepted as fact).
  • Shipper on Deck: Legends of Runeterra has her ask an ally Twisted Fate where his "better half" is in reference to Graves.
  • Short Range Guy, Long Range Guy: The short-ranged bruiser of a duo with the sniper Caitlyn.
  • Talk to the Fist: If her quotes are to be trusted, this is how Vi usually rolls:
  • Tattooed Crook: Has her name tattooed below her left eye, though she's on the side of the law now. Officer Vi exchanges the Roman numeral VI on her face for a normal "6" tattooed on her cleavage.
  • Tomboy and Girly Girl: The rough-and-tumble tomboy to Caitlyn's elegant and polite girly girl. Bonus points for being a butch-femme pairing.
    • The shared splash art for Heartthrob Caitlyn and Heartache Vi really drives the dynamic home.
  • Too Many Belts: As is the standard for Piltover champions.
  • Trash Talk: A lot of her quotes involve this.
    "I've got five reasons for you to shut up."
    "Hmm, I like your smile. Gives me something to aim at."
    "Get dunked!"
  • Unskilled, but Strong: Doesn't possess any training beyond her experience with street brawling but she can get by. Add those Power Fists to the mix and not much can stop her.
  • Waif-Fu: Vi has almost no visible musculature, doesn't stop her from Megaton Punching all kinds of ass, even without her Power Fists. It's Downplayed as, while Vi is no Illaoi, she's still a fair bit bigger and tougher than a lot of the slim girls in LoL, most notably her partner Caitlyn and her Arch-Enemy Jinx.
  • We Used to Be Friends: With her sister Jinx. As "A Score to Settle" suggests, the two had some kind of falling-out even before Jinx went (completely) nuts.
  • Wrecked Weapon: In the "Warriors Season 2020" cinematic, one of her gloves took a shot from Urgot's cannon during his attempted breakout, wrecking it. The other one was struck by Urgot's drill harpoon, forcing Vi to discard it before she was dragged into Urgot's grinders. She proceeded to punch Urgot out with her bare hands.
  • You Are Number 6: Somewhat literally prior to Arcane, since she took her name from the VI (Roman numeral 6) tattoo on her face, which she doesn't know how she got. Her Officer Vi skin instead makes it a proper "6" tattooed on her left breast.

    Viego, the Ruined King 

    Viktor, the Machine Herald 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/viktor_originalloading15.jpg
"Join the glorious evolution."

Voiced by: Owen Thomas (English), Juan Carlos Lozano (European Spanish), Miguel Ángel Ghigliazza (Mexican Spanish), Hiroshi Shirokuma (Japanese), Francisco José (Brazilian Portuguese/League of Legends), Leonardo Camillo (Brazilian Portuguese/Legends of Runeterra) Gwang-Su Lee (Korean), Maxim Dakhnenko (Russian)
Appears in: Legends of Runeterra, Arcane

"A mechanized heart never misses a beat, and never falters with emotion. So why would anyone trust their life to a fragile muscle of flesh and blood?"

The herald of a new age of technology, Viktor has devoted his life to the advancement of humankind. An idealist who seeks to lift the people of Zaun to a new level of understanding, he believes that only by embracing a glorious evolution of technology can humanity’s full potential be realized. With a body augmented by steel and science, Viktor is zealous in his pursuit of this bright future.

Viktor is a Battle Mage champion that is highly versatile, with a mix of burst, sustained damage and crowd control, and the ability to enhance these aspects as the game progresses.
  • With his passive, Glorious Evolution, Viktor collects Hex Fragments from enemies he kills. Upon reaching 100 Hex Fragments, he can upgrade one of his basic abilities with additional effects. Once all three of his basic abilities are upgraded, his ultimate ability is also automatically upgraded.
  • His first ability, Siphon Power, launches a device at an enemy that then bounces back to Viktor, damaging them, shielding Viktor and increasing the damage of his next basic attack. Its upgrade is Augment: Turbocharge, increasing the shield gained and granting him bonus movement speed.
  • His second ability, Gravity Field, deploys a gravitational imprisonment device at a target location for a few seconds, slowing enemies inside and, if they stay inside too long, stunning them. Its upgrade is Augment: Magnetize, adding a slowing effect to Siphon Power, Death Ray and Chaos Storm's initial burst of damage.
  • With his third ability, Death Ray, Viktor's robotic third arm fires a sweeping laser beam down a path of Viktor's choosing, damaging enemies it hits. Its upgrade is Augment: Aftershock, causing a series of small explosive blasts to follow in the wake of the laser beam, dealing further damage to enemies still inside its trajectory.
  • His ultimate ability, Chaos Storm, conjures an electrical storm at a target location, damaging enemies inside and interrupting channeled abilities. The storm then remains on the field for a few seconds, continuously damaging nearby enemies and automatically chasing the closest enemy champion; Viktor can also reactivate the ability to manually redirect it. Its upgrade is Augment: Perfect Storm, increasing the speed of the storm.

Viktor's alternate skins include Full Machine Viktor, Prototype Viktor, Creator Viktor, Death Sworn Viktor, PsyOps Viktor, and High Noon Viktor.

In season 3 of Teamfight Tactics, Viktor was added in the Return to the Stars mid-set update using his Creator Viktor skin as a 4 cost Battlecast Sorcerer. His ability is Death Ray, which burns a path between the two enemies that are farthest away from each other, dealing magic damage to all enemies hit based on their max health. 1 second later, the path explodes, dealing an additional flat amount of magic damage to enemies in the area. He was removed in season 4. He returns in season 5 using his Death Sworn Viktor skin as a Tier 2 Forgotten Spellweaver. His ability was changed to Siphon Power, which blasts the nearest enemy for magic damage and shields the 3 allies nearest that enemy for a few seconds. He was removed in the Dawn of Heroes mid-set update, returning in season 6 using his base skin as a Tier 5 Chemtech Arcanist. His new ability, Chaos Rays, passively causes his basic attacks to shred a large percentage of the target's armor. On activation, Viktor summons multiple singularities increasing with his star level that each fires a sweeping laser across the battlefield in a line, each dealing magic damage to enemies in their path and destroying a percentage of their remaining shields.

In Legends of Runeterra, Viktor is a 4-mana 2/4 Piltover & Zaun Champion with Augment who generates a Hex Core Upgrade (a 0-mana Slow Fleeting spell that gives Viktor a random keyword) at the start of each round. When you have played 8 created cards he levels up, gaining +1/+1 and passively reducing the mana cost of all created cards by 1 while he remains in play. His Champion Spell is Viktor's Death Ray - Mk 1.

Viktor is one of the primary protagonists of Riot's first animated LoL series, Arcane. While the series is considered extended canon to the Runeterra universe, any info added from the series into this section should be carefully compared with the current official canon lore first, before being added. For tropes about Viktor, exclusively to the TV series, go here.
  • Affably Evil: For a given value of 'Evil', anyway. Viktor is well known on his stance that emotion is a biological failing, and his augmentations are known to have side effects alongside their intended effects, but he doesn't fix what isn't broken, and if your problems aren't permanent, he may even offer non-permanent augmentations to fix the problem. He's also quite the understanding person to be around in general.
  • Arch-Enemy: Jayce, for destroying a crystal Viktor was using to further his schemes. Or, he would be, if Viktor was still capable of holding a grudge.
    • In the lore, Viktor's never forgiven Professor Pididly for stealing/taking the credit for his research to create Blitzcrank and other inventions.
  • The Artifact: As a result of Viktor's older voice lines never being updated alongside his lore, they don't match his current personality. For one, an Evil Laugh is about as out of character as it gets for him.
  • Badass Cape: Mostly blue and splits half-way down to end in two tails.
  • Badass Longcoat: Creator Viktor.
  • Big, Stupid Doodoo-Head: During one interaction in Legends of Runeterra, he hilariously resorts to calling Zoe a "fart face". One gets the impression that his Emotion Suppression has left him unable to express his sheer annoyance with her and resorting to copying the nearest available reference (that being Zoe herself).
  • Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: This is what he was going for when he became a cyborg, as he wanted to eliminate all of his painful, jealous emotions. He didn't quite eliminate his hatred of Professor Pididly, though. It's also a big part of why Ekko despises him; he views Viktor as being obsessed with progress for progress' sake and feels that he's the poster boy for stereotypical Zaunite recklessness just as he feels that Mundo and Singed are poster boys for stereotypical Zaunite psychopathy and lack of regard for human life.
  • Cyborg: This guy is more machine than man, and believes it's the next step in human evolution.
  • Difficult, but Awesome:
    • As an archetypical mage, Viktor is fragile and lacks the mobility desired to escape bad situations. While his abilities have a good mix of damage and utility, they have shorter than average ranges, and more importantly causes him to suffer from the Master of None predicament where another champion might provide what the team needs to a better degree. Persevere in mastering Viktor however, and you have a Jack of All Trades mage that can dominate the game from start to finish, augmenting himself into a full-fledged terror.
    • A more specific example: Death Ray. It is Viktor's main spell in securing lane dominance, due to its high range, high damage, instant cast time, and wave-clearing utility. However its usage is gated by a somewhat long cooldown and expensive mana cost, not to mention its highly unique method of casting. note  This makes every cast count, demanding practice to hit targets on a regular basis.
  • Death Ray: The name of his E ability, although unlike the trope, it isn't an instant kill for obvious reasons. It's a reddish-yellow beam than hurts like hell, and can be upgraded to cause small explosions to follow in the laser's wake. The ray itself is shot out through the palm of his third hand, and since said hand is autonomous, Viktor himself doesn't have to stop to make the shot. Before a patch, said Death Ray could even shoot out while Viktor was dancing. There's something awkwardly funny about a Mad Scientist doing the shuffle while shooting lasers at his enemies.
  • Emotion Suppression: Viktor, present day, has suppressed his emotions to the point where he has no trouble ignoring them when making decisions. He feels empathy, satisfaction, disinterest, mischievousness, etc, but he's never angry, sad, fearful, or likewise.
  • Everyone Has Standards: Viktor, surprisingly enough, has a very firm stance on consent for his services and will never force operations on unwilling participants nor will he deviate from what kind of cybernetic medical procedure he and the patient agree on (like adding extra eyes when someone asks for a new arm). Unfortunately, his inventions are experimental and some of his more complicated procedures can be dangerous or have side effects. But Zaun is full of desperate people and he will at least warn them before hand if he knows something might go wrong.
  • Evil Laugh: Using his Death Ray ability is usually accompanied by him laughing.
  • Evil Overlord: Subverted — he has a reputation as one, but he doesn't actually try to control or influence anyone nor does he think of himself as doing harm. He views the cult that formed for him as idiots who misunderstand his intentions. Anyone can join and be his acolyte, as long as they're willing to be augmented to his liking, and if they don't want to do something he won't force them to stay. This is displayed much more freely with the alternate universe Creator Viktor, the creator and leader of the Battlecast series whose purpose is to eliminate any threat to his goals.
  • Evil Parents Want Good Kids: Although Viktor's morality is... debatable, his listed as "friends" with a creation of his: Blitzcrank, a sentient robot who seems to be perfectly happy fitting in with the rest of humanity. In reality, he removed his ability to feel true compassion or hatred long ago and is for the most part non-hostile but incapable of being a friend towards pretty much everyone.
  • Expy: He bears a significant resemblance to members of the Adeptus Mechanicus, though his behavior and ideals couldn't be more different. Also, Prototype Viktor bears a great likeness to Professor Membrane from Invader Zim.
  • Foil: Viktor and Jayce contrast nicely as the two epitomes of each of their respective cities, both are reclusive geniuses that work for two opposing city's. Viktor is seen as the stereotypical Zaun Mad Scientist but is actually pretty pleasant to talk to if a bit misanthropic, while Jayce is a poster boy for the shining city of Piltover who... isn't pleasant to talk to. Furthermore, their kits are opposite; while Jayce is based on various different combos to poke, whittle down, and trade with small groups of opponents utilizing physical damage, Viktor is based on emphatically destroying entire groups of enemies with magical damage. Even their non-damaging abilities are fundamental opposites to one another: while Jayce's Acceleration Gate speeds up his allies in a line, Viktor's Gravity Field slows down his enemies in a circle.
  • Godzilla Threshold: To the common person, going to Viktor with a problem is the final resort: His augmentations will solve the original problem, make no mistake, but they are almost guaranteed to have side-effects that aren't desirable - but to the desperate with nothing to lose, Viktor is a borderline Messianic Archetype.
  • Herr Doktor: His accent is a rather heavy mix of German and Russian influences.
  • Ironic Echo: Viktor shares Jayce's movement quote: "Pave the way". However, whereas Jayce's line is said with the intention of securing Piltover's future, Viktor's is used to emphasize leading the Glorious Evolution by example.
  • Jack of All Trades: He starts off a bit sluggish, but once he gets his Augments, he gains a lot of utility to make him into this, granting solid waveclear, in-combat mobility, and vastly improved area-of-effect and zone control, all packed with his great burst damage.
  • Large Ham: He speaks with a grandiose kind of assurance, produces small Evil Laughs as he uses his Death Ray, and when he's ready to go full out and casts his ultimate Chaos Storm, he lets loose one of four Pre Asskicking One Liners.
  • Lighter and Softer: Around the time of Warwick's VGU, most Zaun champions also got lore updates. In Viktor's case, he was made morally grey and simply preaches about his "glorious evolution" to willing volunteers instead of forcing it on anyone, but is mistakenly believed to be the purely evil Mad Scientist he was pre-retcon by most people. This is best shown in his short story House on Emberflit Alley.
  • Mad Scientist: He certainly looks like one, but it's more case of philosophy than insanity.
  • Magikarp Power: Viktor's early laning phase isn't great, in part from lacking many tools with his abilities, high mana costs, and poor sustain. Once he gets rolling, in part thanks to his Augments, his high AoE damage, solid zoning control, and other personal utilities make him much stronger, able to dual a lot of enemies and burst them down.
  • Malevolent Masked Man: His face kind of looks like he's wearing a mask after he was done augmenting himself. Presumably it is just a mask, because 'House of Emberflit Alley' reveals he still has at least a mouth he can sip drinks though. He's not quite so malevolent anymore, either.
  • Mechanically Unusual Fighter: It's not a part of him anymore, but between his initial launch and his pre-season 11 rework, Viktor's passive required that he carry a "Hex Core" as an item, which granted basic stats and required gold in order for Viktor to upgrade his abilities. Unlike other champion-specific items like Kalista's Black Spear or Fiddlesticks' Scarecrow Effigies, the Hex Core occupied a main item slot and could not be sold, somewhat limiting Viktor's purchasing options per game.
  • Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Unlike most tropes of this kind, he has an odd number of hands: 3. The third hand is autonomous, shoots lasers and is apparently not beyond doing a poke-prank.
  • Never Be Hurt Again: By cutting himself off from the rest of society during his augmentation, he ensured that he alone would get credit for the breakthrough. He also removed his ability to even care about it in the first place.
  • Not So Stoic: Viktor is very unemotional, knowing no fear or pain and being entirely logical, but in 'House on Emberflit Alley' he confesses to a liking for sweetmilk, calling it "A weakness of mine" simply because he still enjoys the flavour of anise.
  • Odd Friendship: They're not quite buddies, but in Legends of Runeterra, he gets a lot of interactions with Zoe, being annoyed by her immaturity yet intrigued by her vast understanding of celestial concepts.
  • Power Crystal: He wields a "Hex Core" on his staff, effectively an empowered hextech crystal that vastly enriches his magic-based technology. When Viktor upgrades his abilities, it shifts from being its default purple to yellow, blue, then red.
  • Power Makes Your Voice Deep: We're talking Apocalypse Tank deep here.
  • Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: Casting Chaos Storm is accompanied by a voice response from Viktor, the BEHOLD! instance being the most hammy.
  • Pro-Human Transhuman: Viktor after his augmentation is quite the friendly guy for someone who believes emotions are failings of biology, and as he barely has any emotion left he doesn't hold grudgesnote  - if you come to him with problems, he will offer a solution through augmentation regardless of your former stance, because he wants to help. And while his help may rid you of an emotion or two along the way, he won't start replacing your chest or head just because you have a problem with your lungs.
  • Professor Guinea Pig: All of his augmentations are self-applied, both the physical enhancements and the emotional suppression, all of it.
  • The Rival: With fellow champion Jayce - moreso in the past than present, as he presently views Jayce as just another rejecter.
  • Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Viktor started out as firmly on the idealism side, wanting to better the conditions of workers. Being repeatedly taken advantage of, finding people opposed to the idea of augmenting themselves to be better transhumans, and getting on the wrong side of ethical concern, eventually caused him to realized that idealism itself was yet another emotional failing to be augmented away, and present-day Viktor isn't so much an idealist as he is a Pro-Human Transhuman who watches those rejecting augmentation not with scorn, not with malice, not even with pity, but with indifference. If they want to partake in the Glorious Evolution, they will have to take the first step themselves by overcoming their fear of change, and of him.
  • Stop Worshipping Me: The people he has helped and saved view him as a borderline Messianic Archetype. Viktor views this worship as proof that they still aren't rid of their emotions.
  • Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: He has a habit of lapsing into these, but even though he might say something like "Humans consistently ignore the endless infinity of possibilities in favor of maintaining the status quo" he's not averse to offering the Layman's Terms of "People fear change" if the meaning is lost of the one he is talking to.
  • Shoulder Cannon: Invoked by the miniature robotic arm attached to his left shoulder that fires beam attacks.
  • The Stoic: Emotions, to Viktor, are biological failings that trump reason at the worst possible time. His goal with augmentation was once just to better the lives of others, but after realizing emotions made others reject his augments, he realized that emotions themselves were problems. In the present-day, Viktor views Emotion Suppression as a result of augmentation as positive thing, and he, himself, is quite a stoic individual - never having emotional outbursts and always thinking rationally. Note that he's not opposed to emotions themselves, just how they overrule reason.
  • Sweeping Laser Explosion: Viktor's Death Ray ability is normally just a laser he fires across the ground, but augmenting it with Hex-Core upgrades it by having a trail of explosions appear at the wake of the laser.
  • Techno Wizard: No straight-up magic - just technology fueled by it.
  • Totalitarian Utilitarian: He genuinely wants to help, but the psychological damage his work can cause is a big nono for most people.
  • Transhuman: If you can make yourself better through applied science, Viktor has been there, done that, gotten the souvenir, written a travel guide about it already, and it would bring him the closest he's able to get to "happy" if he could help you follow in his footsteps.
  • Unexplained Accent: He's the only character in the setting to have his Vaguely German/Russian/Eastern European accent.
  • Unreliable Narrator: Either he or Jayce is this, as their lore entries contain inaccuracies to one another.
  • Utopia Justifies the Means: Believes that the future of Valoran will come in the form of Hextech augmentation for all. Ekko sees this as progress for progress' sake and hates him for it because he feels that he embodies one of the main negative stereotypes of Zaun.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: Getting augmented to further one's capabilities sounds great on paper... then you see just how robotic and unfeeling Viktor really is. He at least seems to be able to be content with himself no matter what, since he can't feel anything anymore, so his stories are intentionally written to make his viewpoint have some merit (plus the fact that emotions in Runeterra tend to birth spirits and VERY dangerous demons, he might have a good point there too).
  • What the Hell Is That Accent?: His aforementioned Vaguely German/Russian/Eastern European accent. It's a strange peppering of all three, which does its job of giving him the Herr Doktor Mad Scientist feel.

    Vladimir, the Crimson Reaper 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/vladimir_originalloading.jpg
"The rivers will run red."

Voiced by: Kevin M. Connolly (English/Original), Gavin Hammon (English/Blood Lord), Jason Spisak (English/Current, Legends of Runeterra-), Juan Navarro (European Spanish/Original), Txema Moscoso (European Spanish/Blood Lord), José Luis Orozco (Mexican Spanish), Tomokazu Seki (Japanese), Ricardo Schnetzer (Brazilian Portuguese), Jae-Heon Jeong (Korean), Sergey Smirnov (Russian)
Appears in: Legends of Runeterra

"Time has made me wiser, but no more patient."

A fiend with a thirst for mortal blood, Vladimir has influenced the affairs of Noxus since the empire’s earliest days. In addition to unnaturally extending his life, his mastery of hemomancy allows him to control the minds and bodies of others as easily as his own. In the flamboyant salons of the Noxian aristocracy, this enabled him to build a fanatical cult of personality around himself—while in the lowest back alleys, it allows him to bleed his enemies dry.

Vladimir is a Battle Mage champion heavily based around draining his foes' health to sustain his own, offsetting his short range by being much more resilient than the average mage. Instead of mana, he uses health to cast his abilities.
  • His passive, Crimson Path, increases Vladimir's health based on his ability power, and his ability power based on his health.
  • With his first ability, Transfusion, Vladimir drains blood from a nearby enemy, damaging them and healing himself. After using the ability twice, Vladimir gains Crimson Rush for a few seconds, granting him a short burst of movement speed and increasing the damage and healing of his next Transfusion.
  • His second ability, Sanguine Pool, makes Vladimir melt into a pool of blood, gaining increased movement speed, becoming untargetable and allowing him to move through units for a few seconds. While in this state, Vladimir damages and slows enemies he oozes under, while healing himself based on the damage dealt.
  • With his third ability, Tides of Blood, Vladimir charges-up a torrent of blood for a short duration, moving at reduced speed. When the channel ends, he releases it as an exploding barrage of blood missiles around himself, damaging surrounding enemies and briefly slowing them if he charged-up the attack long enough.
  • His ultimate ability, Hemoplague, infects enemies inside a target location with a virulent blood disease, increasing all incoming damage they take for a few seconds. When the effect ends, all afflicted enemies are damaged, and Vladimir heals himself by a percentage of the damage dealt to each enemy champion.

Vladimir's alternate skins include Marquis Vladimir, Count Vladimir, Nosferatu Vladimir, Vandal Vladimir, Blood Lord Vladimir, Soulstealer Vladimir, Academy Vladimir, Dark Waters Vladimir, Nightbringer Vladimir, Cosmic Devourer Vladimir, and Cafe Cuties Vladimir.

In season 2 of Teamfight Tactics, Vladimir uses his Dark Waters Vladimir skin and is a Tier 1 Ocean Mage. His ability is Drain, which damages his target and heals himself for the same amount. He was removed in season 3. He returns in season 4's Festival of Beasts mid-set update as a Tier 2 Cultist Syphoner using his Blood Lord Vladimir skin. His ability was changed to Transfusion, which acts similarly to Drain but also heals nearby allies in addition to himself for a percentage of the damage dealt. In season 5, he uses his Nightbringer Vladimir skin as a Tier 1 Nightbringer Renewer. His ability, while still named Transfusion, functions more similarly to his season 2 ability, damaging his target and healing only himself for a flat amount of health. He was removed in season 6, returning in season 7 with the same ability using his Cosmic Devourer Vladimir skin as a Tier 1 Astral Mage.

In Legends of Runeterra, Vladimir is a 5-mana 5/5 Noxus Champion with Fearsome who casts Crimson Pact when played, dealing 1 damage to any number of allies to deal that much damage to a targeted enemy. When 5 or more allies have taken damage without dying Vladimir levels up, gaining +1/+1 and Regeneration and casting a modified Crimson Pact when he attacks, dealing 1 damage to each attacking ally to his right to drain that much health from the enemy Nexus. His Champion Spell is Vladimir's Transfusion (1-mana Burst spell that deals 1 damage to an ally to give +2/+2 to another for the round).
  • Achilles' Heel: Like everyone else heavily dependent on healing skills to sustain themselves, Grievous Wounds (through Ignite or various items/abilities) is a serious threat since it temporarily halves said healing. Additionally, he's vulnerable to percent health-shredding attacks since he tends to bulk up on HP due to his passive, though not to the extent of a true tank.
  • Actually Not a Vampire: Despite how he looks and acts, he is a hemomancer, not a vampire, and is completely mortal, actively sustaining himself through magic.
  • Art Evolution: When brought over to Wild Rift, Vlad received a very significant bump in his visual quality, including a much cleaner face and anatomy, as well as a new outfit exclusive to that version of League.
  • Badass Biker: Vandal Vladimir's splash art shows him riding a pretty nasty bike.
  • Balance Buff: Vladimir's status as a high-sustain mage with equal parts Life Drain and vicious damage was far less interactive on release — Transfusion had no ramp-up requirements, and Tides of Blood needed no charge-upnote , making him a very hard stat-checker who when strong could completely outheal enemies as he killed them, but when weak did his enemies' jobs of killing his own health for them. He was given a retooling in the midseason 6 mage updates that made him into what we have today, limiting the windows of opportunity into specific conditions of optimal power. Overall, he's allowing to still rely on lifesteal and AoE damage, but requires more careful timing and positioning for it.
  • Bloody Murder: His entire theme, with his abilities utilizing blood to inflict damage, slow enemies, and other effects.
  • Bowdlerise:
    • In Legends of Runeterra, Vladimir's cards (as well as his relevant spell cards) are subject to the general censorship of blood that some regions have in the game, editing his violent red Blood Magic to be more purple, rendering the effects akin to how the game's artwork normally depicts Soul Power.
    • In Wild Rift, Vladimir gets to keep his red Blood Magic, but his splash art and in-game VFX soften their look to less obviously resemble blood. It closely resembles the design for hemomancy in Legends of Runeterra.
  • Broken Masquerade: Vladimir has habitually phased in and out of Noxian royal courts during particularly interesting times, making an effort to hide his agelessness and identities each time. Unfortunately for him, this has come to bite him in the present day, where he rejoined the courts following Jericho Swain's appointment as Grand General, which may have been too soon since his past life, as Swain has begun to know something's up.
  • The Bus Came Back: Of all Noxian champions, Vladimir had had the least impact on the story since his release in 2010, doing effectively nothing of any relevance and only being occasionally mentioned in passing in some of the Journal of Justice articles, to the point that it was easy to forget he even existed (the fact that he was out of the meta and considered a poor pick didn't help). Then Sion got his remake, where Vladimir dramatically conducted a frightening ritual to reawaken the Undead Juggernaut from his tomb by siphoning the blood of half a dozen acolytes into him, a terrifying reminder that the hemomancer is still around and still deadly...
  • Cast from Hit Points: He possesses no mana, instead using his health to power most of his abilities.
  • The Chessmaster: Partnered with LeBlanc, Vladimir formed the ever-expanding, but still secretive Black Rose, a hidden power secretly guiding Noxus since its formation in a never-ending game of politics and war.
  • Cult of Personality: Among the practitioners of hemomancy in Noxus are The Crimson Circle, "a youthful cult dedicated as much to Vladimir's personality as to blood magic itself."
  • The Dandy: His League Judgement pays special attention to his regal clothing, expensive jewelry, perfect hair and manicured nails.
  • Darker and Edgier: His legendary Blood Lord skin is very much this, wearing intimidating black armor, speaking in a deeper voice, having a new set of violent casting animations, and dropping all the lame blood puns for threatening new voiceovers.
  • Evil Brit: In League of Legends, Vladimir doesn't have an especially notable accent, but in Legends of Runeterra, he sounds more distinctly posh to really lean into his evil aristocrat archetype.
  • Evil Overlord: Blood Lord Vladimir.
  • Faux Affably Evil: His cheerful, punny demeanor almost makes you forget that he's a brutal, homicidal hemomancer.
  • The Fog of Ages: As he still has a mortal's mind, any knowledge he has of his earlier years come from piecing together legends and indirect accounts of his life rather than his own memories.
  • From Nobody to Nightmare:
    • Originally a prince callously enslaved to the Darkin, he became ambitious enough to be trusted with their horrific hemomancy, ascending to being his master's warhost before killing him and absorbing his life force. Things only escalate from there, including becoming part of the Black Rose.
    • Also in a meta sense; before his lore rewrite, he was just a random Noxian youth with an unnatural obsession with blood who learned the secrets of hemomancy, after it he's an ancient immortal monster bordering on Humanoid Abomination who's been around since the fall of the Darkin, lived through Mordekaiser's reign of terror, and was one of the two founders of the Black Rose in concert with LeBlanc.
  • Life Drinker: He's very old, around since the dawn of Noxus itself, but has remained in the present day due to his hemomancy and countless sacrificial rituals. This is demonstrated in his Wild Rift trailer, where he absorbs the blood of Noxian soldiers to transform from a feeble elder needing a cane to walk to a youthful sorcerer.
  • Long-Lost Relative: Viego, the Ruined King himself, confirms that Vladimir is his distant uncle. According to a one-off interaction and their writer, Vladimir sent out a customary (once yearly) letter back to Camavor after he was sold out to a Darkin master, but Viego was too occupied to ever respond.
  • Magikarp Power: Vladimir is often said to have one of the weakest laning phases in the entire game, putting out pitiful champion damage and being very vulnerable to harass despite his ability to heal himself. It's to the point where his "good" lane match-ups are those he can simply not interact with. However, given enough AP and a tank item or two and suddenly Vladimir is capable of decimating entire teams with his constant stream of damage while healing back almost all lost health in an absurdly short amount of time.
  • Mighty Glacier: Slow and fairly short-ranged for a mage outside of his ult, but can put out an incredible amount of sustained damage in a radius while being frustratingly hard to kill.
  • Our Vampires Are Different: Actually, Vladimir isn't a vampire... but it's kinda hard to tell. The most obvious difference between Vladimir and a vampire is that Vladimir isn't in any way undead.
  • Plaguemaster: His ultimate has him infect enemy champions with a virulent plague, increasing the damage they receive before detonating with finishing damage which heals him.
  • The Power of Blood: Vladimir's hemomancy originally came from the Darkin, and he was among the first mortals to study and master it. He isn't the only one practicing it; several mortals freed from the Darkin campaign fled "taking what knowledge they had of blood magic with them," and in more recent times, Vladimir's teachings have found their place in Noxian military and aristocracy.
  • Pungeon Master: He doesn't have a single line that isn't some kind of blood-related pun.
  • Retcon: Originally, Vladimir was a pretty normal, if sadistic mage who learned hemomancy from a wicked monk (who then became Vladimir's first victim with it) and used it to brute-force his way up the Noxian ranks. With a 2018 rewrite, he instead became an immortal who was taught hemomancy by the Darkin, and has been involved in altering the course of Noxus through politics and deceit since it first came to be.
  • The Spook: Despite being around since the dawn of Noxus, Vladimir blips on and off the empire's radar, only being majorly punctuated by his partnership with LeBlanc of The Black Rose and directly partaking in Noxian royal courts during "interesting" times before vanishing.
  • Squishy Wizard: Zigzagged. The more ability power he gets, the larger his health pool becomes, and vice versa. Pre-nerfs Vladimir could easily achieve the highest health pool in the whole game, not impairing his damage output much. Most of that health winds up fueling his spells. Most offensive builds will acquire spell vamp early on so he can recover the HP he spends on his abilities. Only 2 of his abilities cost HP, and while Sanguine Pool uses a potentially staggering 20% of his current HP, it makes him completely untargetable meaning that properly timed, he can avoid taking a lot more damage from enemy champions.
  • Vocal Evolution: Vladimir's voice in Legends of Runeterra is significantly more posh and light, and when combined with dropping the copious blood puns, he's overall much more serious yet classy.
  • White Hair, Black Heart: To the core. His Blood Lord skin also plays this straight.
  • Wicked Cultured: His Judgement suggests he has a certain appreciation for fine architecture. It's further emphasized in the short story "Art is Life", where it's revealed that he lives in an elaborate mansion with plants from the former Blessed Isles blooming in its gardens.
  • Your Vampires Suck: In Vladimir's Champion Spotlight video it was recommended you get a Sunfire Cape, because "real vampires sparkle."

    Volibear, the Relentless Storm 

Valhir

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/volibear_loading_0.jpg
"Fear the power of the wild."

Voiced by: David Sobolov (English/Current), Unknown (English/Pre-VGU), Antonio Esquivias (European Spanish), Miguel Ángel Ghigliazza (Mexican Spanish/Pre-VGU), Salvador Reyes (Mexican Spanish/Current), Tsuguo Mogami (Japanese/Pre-VGU), Satoshi Tsuruoka (Japanese/Current), José Santa Cruz (Brazilian Portuguese/Pre-VGU), Leonardo José (Brazilian Portuguese/Current) Yeong-Jun Si (Korean), Denis Bgavin (Russian/1st Voice), Andrey Pirog (Russian/Current)
Appears in: Song of Nunu: A League of Legends Story

"They have forgotten the old ways. The old ways have not forgotten them."

To those who still revere him, the Volibear is the storm made manifest. Destructive, wild, and stubbornly resolute, he existed before mortals walked the Freljord’s tundra, and is fiercely protective of the lands that he and his demi-god kin created. Cultivating a deep hatred of civilization and the weakness it brought with it, he now fights to return to the old ways—when the land was untamed, and blood spilled freely—and eagerly battles all who oppose him, with tooth, claw, and thundering domination.

Volibear is a Juggernaut champion who brings the storm's wrath upon his foes, enduring their attacks and savagely mauling them while disabling the cowardly structures they hide behind.
  • His passive, The Relentless Storm, grants Volibear a stack whenever he damages an enemy with his attacks or abilities, up to five, with each stack increasing his attack speed. At five stacks, Volibear also gains Lightning Claws, causing his basic attacks to release chain lightning that deals bonus damage to the target and up to four other nearby enemies. The stacks will quickly fade if Volibear stays out of combat for too long.
  • With his first ability, Thundering Smash, Volibear drops to all fours for a few seconds, granting him increased movement speed that is doubled when moving towards a visible enemy champion and making his next basic attack deal bonus damage and briefly stun the target. If Volibear is immobilized by a crowd-control effect while running on all fours, Thundering Smash immediately ends, but the ability's cooldown is refreshed.
  • His second ability, Frenzied Maul, rends a nearby enemy with Volibear's claws, damaging them based on their max health and marking them as Wounded for a few seconds. Further uses of Frenzied Maul on Wounded enemies become bites that deal increased damage and heal Volibear based on his missing health.
  • His third ability, Sky Splitter, causes a lightning bolt to strike down at a target location after a brief delay, damaging and slowing foes inside. Volibear gains a shield based on his max health if hit by the lightning bolt.
  • With his ultimate ability, Stormbringer, Volibear leaps into the air towards a target location, landing with a crashing impact that slows nearby enemies and damages those he directly lands upon; nearby enemy towers are also damaged and briefly disabled. For a few seconds afterwards, Volibear grows, gaining bonus health.

Volibear's alternate skins include Thunder Lord Volibear, Northern Storm Volibear, Runeguard Volibear, Captain Volibear, El Rayo Volibear, The Thousand-Pierced Bear, Duality Dragon Volibear, Prestige Duality Dragon Volibear, and Inkshadow Volibear. Wild Rift exclusively includes Shan Hai Scrolls Volibear.

In season 1 of Teamfight Tactics, Volibear is a Tier 3 Glacial Brawler. His ability, Thunder Claws, empowers Volibear's attacks with lightning that bounces to nearby enemies, dealing damage and applying on-hit effects. In season 2, Volibear was changed to a Tier 2 Glacial Electric Berserker. His ability was changed to Frenzied Bite, which does damage to an enemy and, if they're below 35% HP, instantly kills them and restores Volibear's mana to full. He was removed in season 3. He returns in season 5 using his The Thousand-Pierced Bear skin as a Tier 5 Revenant Brawler. His ability was changed to Doombringer, which has Volibear leap towards his target and slam down in a large area around him. Enemies hit are stunned, knocked up, and take magic damage which is twice as effective against shields. He was removed in season 6, returning in season 7 using his Duality Dragon Volibear skin as a Tier 3 Shimmerscale Dragonmancer Legend. His new ability, Relentless Storm, buffs Volibear for the rest of the round, granting him bonus health and causing every third basic attack to deal bonus magic damage that chains to a number of nearby enemies that increases with his star level. He loses the Legend class due to the removal of the trait in the Uncharted Realms mid-set update. He was removed in season 8, returning in season 11 using his Inkshadow Volibear skin as a Tier 3 Inkshadow Duelist. His Ink Smash ability empowers his next three basic attacks, the first two dealing bonus magic damage and healing himself for a flat amount, the third dealing even more damage based on Volibear's max health and briefly stunning the target.

In Legends of Runeterra, Volibear is a 9-mana 10/10 Freljord Champion that casts Relentless Storm 3 times on different random enemies when played; if there are less than 3 targets, the excess casts target the enemy Nexus. Relentless Storm deals 4 damage to the target unit, or 2 to the enemy Nexus if targeting it directly or the targeted unit is no longer in play. Once you've dealt 50 or more damage, Volibear levels up, gaining +1/+1 and Overwhelm as well as passively giving all allies Overwhelm, and he will now also cast 3 Relentless Storms on different targets when attacking. His Champion Spell is Volibear's Stormbringer (8-mana Slow Spell that deals 4 to all units except Titanicnote  allies).
  • Achilles' Heel: Volibear needs to build a lot of health in order to maximize his offensive power through Frenzied Maul, which makes him easily countered by Percent Damage Attacks. Also, outside of Sky Splitter, he relies entirely on melee engagement, and while he has a few mobility tricks up his sleeve, he's overall slow enough to be countered by crowd control and good kiting.
  • An Ice Person: Downplayed as he's far more associated with Shock and Awe, but due to his Freljordian demigod status, he's capable of making his own form of True Ice. This unique variant makes up his braids and the giant spikes on his back, which he uses to contain his own lightning energy.
  • Anthropomorphic Personification: Similar to how Anivia represents the harsh snow and ice of the Freljord, Volibear is a manifestation of its storms. He's slightly less humanized than his demigod siblings and depicted closer to a primal force of nature, existing solely for savage and brutal conflict wherever he goes, resulting in his interpretation as a War God.
  • Anti-Structure: Using Stormbringer near an enemy turret disables them for a few seconds, making them unable to fire shots at Volibear or anyone on his team. While it will still target units as it normally would, this buys a brief, but assured window to towerdive with.
  • Ascended Meme: He was created in response to an ongoing joke on the forums about armored bears, and was named after then-producer Travis "Volibar" George, who greatly supported the idea. His "Chronokeeper Hater" buff when in the presence of an enemy Zilean is a nod to fellow Rioter Tom "Zileas" Cadwell, who was opposed to the idea.
  • The Assimilator: It's unclear what allows him to do this beyond sheer presence, but The Volibear is ridiculously compelling, mentally overcoming warriors into becoming the monstrous Ursine as his vessels. One former spirit walker who serves as his agent directly proclaims "I cannot speak for him. I am simply his instrument." Volibear almost manages to overcome Sejuani and the Winter's Claw, but Udyr snaps out of it and gets them to fight.
  • Badass Boast: His dialogue is full of them.
    "Follow me and we will bring down the sky!"
    "My thunder shakes the foundations of the world!"
  • Balance Buff: Prior to his VGU, Volibear was known to be a decent, but plain brawler champion, who had some unique strengths that were locked in very conditional in ways like his old passivenote , and also some pretty glaring weaknesses like his exclusively close range and lack of real gapclosers. When he received his VGU in 2020, Volibear was made to center around being "relentless", being a nigh-unignorable presence when nearby (partly tied into his Sky Splitter, functioning not only as a shielding initiate but also much needed ranged poke), with his Stormbringer ultimate giving him a massive means to get up close, and the raw power of his Chain Lightning and healing of Frenzied Maul allowing him to rip apart enemies once there.
  • Baritone of Strength: His voice is very deep and booming. You were probably expecting it, what with him being a giant, muscled bear and all.
  • Bears Are Bad News: He is a bear. A giant, warmongering and lightning-infused bear that hates people.
  • Been There, Shaped History: Is one of the patron demi-gods of the Freljord. In particular, his battle with Ornn wiped out all of Ornn's followers by collateral damage.
  • Blood Knight: A demigod of violent storms, Volibear craves battle and blood and encourages others to fight simply because it's in his nature.
  • Blue-and-Orange Morality: Befitting a god of storms and thunder, Volibear is a wild being and has little love for humans due to their love of technology. Volibear's goal is to destroy civilizations and return the world to simple times. In the story Silence For The Damned he attempts to impose his will for total destruction and return to nature on the Winter's Claw tribe, nearly turning them into his vessels. That being said, he lacks an evil will and simply acts according to his bloodthirsty instinct.
  • Body Horror:
  • Brick Joke: Years before Volibear's lore relaunch, Ornn joked how "Volibear made the first river. You do not want to know how." When the relaunch came, we finally got the answer: it was formed out of a giant magma serpent's blood after Volibear tore it apart in battle.
    "The first river was a river of blood! What has my brother been telling you?"
  • Cain and Abel: The Cain to Ornn's Abel. In the Avarosan view of the legend, Volibear demanded that Ornn crafted weapons and armor for his Ursine so they could wage war. When Ornn refused, Volibear resolved to take the weapons by force, causing a battle between the demi-gods that killed Ornn's followers outside of the mountain with their earth-breaking blows. Ornn has hated Volibear ever since. The Winter's Claw and other warrior tribes of the Freljord have a much different version of this story however.
  • Chain Lightning: His passive, The Relentless Storm, causes lightning to chain from his initial target to others nearby after he lands five auto attacks in quick succession.
  • Close-Range Combatant: As it turns out, letting an angry armored bear charge toward you and get into mauling range is a bad idea.
  • Compelling Voice: In Silence For the Damned, Volibear demonstrates to have this power, and his influence nearly brings Sejuani, Udyr, and the rest of the Winter's Claw to his knees, even managing to get Sejuani to speak of the atrocities he desired from them before Udyr breaks the spell.
  • The Corrupter: His modern-day legion of Ursine warriors consist entirely of spirit walkers, shamans channeling the spirits of animals known for being generally benign. It's somewhat ambiguous as to whether the Ursine are a sect of spirit walkers who fanatically devoted themselves to the spirit of Volibear of their own volition, or if it was entirely Volibear's doing, but regardless, his influence turned them into violent, grotesque facsimiles of man and beast that only serve his will.
  • Covered with Scars: When appearing in Ornn's short story, he's described as having swords, spears and tusks sticking out of his hide. It's likely the reason for his title as "The Thousand-Pierced Bear".
  • Create Your Own Villain: As the Three Sisters began their initial rise, Volibear clawed out Lissandra's eyes for attempting to steal the demigods' magic for themselves. Not only did this not stop the Freljord from deifying the sisters, one has to wonder how the history of the Freljord (or indeed, Runeterra at large) would change had this blinding not happened, as it lead to her instead exploring dreams for power. Dreams that led her to The Watchers.
  • Deal with the Devil: Silence For The Damned surrounds Sejuani's attempt to bargain with him and the Ursine for power to bolster the Winter's Claw. Bad news: The Volibear doesn't play fair and is clearly influencing them to commit to a horrific deal that will lead to widespread death and destruction. Good news: Udyr shuts him up before a contract is made.
  • Dynamic Entry: His ultimate, Stormbringer, has him unleash his true form while coming down with an enormous crash that deals heavy damage to anyone caught underneath while disabling nearby towers.
  • Eating the Enemy: His savage ideals of combat means he isn't above the idea of literally devouring his enemies. Using Frenzied Maul repeatedly on a target has Volibear take a nasty chomp out of them.
    "I still taste their ancestors... stuck between my teeth." (chuckles)
  • Eldritch Abomination: As of Silence For The Damned, Volibear isn't so much a bear as an incarnation of Ursine power fused with lightning. Half his face is missing, shredded to the bone, while the other is studded with more eyes than it should have.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He's misanthropic not to just the complacent humans, but even other demigods who don't share his rhetoric of violence. However, he still refers to his sister Anivia with fondness despite being in the latter category, wanting her to join his cause and sounding mournful about having to slay her in battle. Surprisingly, this sympathy even extends to Ornn despite their relationship appearing completely unsalvageable.
    (killing Ornn) "Ornn's blood on my claws... surely, there was a reason. Surely, this is just..."
  • Fire, Ice, Lightning: Volibear is Lightning, Anivia is Ice, and Ornn is Fire.
  • Flash of Pain: While playing as Volibear, should he get immobilized while using Thundering Smash, the screen will briefly flash red. Because Thundering Smash resets its cooldown if he gets stunned while using it, this serves as an indicator for Volibear to hit the ability again to keep going.
  • From Nobody to Nightmare: Meta example. On release, Volibear was just a large, sapient bear with armor and lightning powers. After various retcons and rewrites, he's been made not only a demigod, but a nightmarish and brutal Eldritch Abomination who leads his followers into mass slaughter and butchery.
  • Gaia's Vengeance: He sees himself as this: returning the world to its state before Ornn gave the Freljord fire and taught them to be civilized. Though, it's less because he respects nature and more because he feels that Love Is a Weakness and that mankind has grown soft.
  • Gathering Steam: Volibear thrives in protracted one-on-one duels. Frenzied Maul ramps up in damage after the first use on a target, healing Volibear for a sizable chunk of his missing health in the process. His passive, The Relentless Storm grants him additional attack speed up to a cap so long as he continues attacking the enemy, while also spewing Chain Lightning to the target and those around it when he reaches max stacks.
  • Gods Need Prayer Badly: His bio directly states that his power is proportional to how much he's venerated. The reason he hasn't been seen much by the present day despite once having ruled the Freljord is because majority of its inhabitants have now moved onto worshiping the Three Sisters. He intends to change that.
    "I am a god. I cannot die. But do I live if I am not in the hearts of warriors?"
  • Human Pincushion: He's called "The Thousand-Pierced Bear" because some Freljordians interpret him as having seen so much battle that he's had thousands of blades stuck into him, some of which still remain on him.
  • I Have Many Names: "The Volibear" is merely one of his titles. He's also known as the Thunder's Roar, the Greatstorm, Valhir, He Who Stands, Ruin, and The Thousand-Pierced Bear. According to him, he does have a true name, but it's for him alone.
  • Jerkass Gods: He has a very low view of humanity for becoming more orderly and civilized. While some demigods wanted to ally with humans and the Three Sisters, or simply treat them with passive indifference, Volibear sought to destroy them. After he was defeated and the Freljord evolved without him, he's only become angrier at their increased resistance to the true wilderness of nature and plans to reimpose it back onto them.
  • The Juggernaut: He's officially classified as such and possesses the tanky damage to back it up, but Stormbringer kicks it up a notch, giving him even more health and disabling the enemy towers your opponents are probably scampering to hide under.
  • "Just So" Story: Volibear has been canonized as responsible for early development of the Freljord, though not quite as directly or with intent as Ornn. Supposedly, he created the Five Fjords with a single swipe of his claws, and during a brawl with a savage magma serpent, their battlefield became valleys and ravines. When Volibear killed the beast, its blood formed the first river in the Freljord, and its colossal corpse became the Wyrmback Mountains.
  • Literally Shattered Lives: Volibear's death animation has him freeze up in ice (possibly True Ice) before shattering to pieces.
  • Man Bites Man: Frenized Maul lets him heal by chomping on whoever's marked with the first strike of the ability.
  • Meaningful Name: In-universe, his preferred mortal name "Valhir" means "god" in ancient Freljordian. Out-of-universe, it and to a lesser extent the name "Volibear" are etymologically linked to the Old Norse word "valhyrr," meaning "fire of the battle-slain."
  • Mighty Glacier: He's a Juggernaut champion whose only mobility options come from the speed boost of Thundering Smash and the mighty leap with Stormbringer, neither of which are especially fast. Once in mauling range, however, Volibear has no problems at all ripping his opponents to pieces.
  • Mighty Roar: One of his names is "The Thunder's Roar" (which was champion subtitle before 2020), and his recall animation shows it's well-deserved, with him literally roaring out lightning.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: If he kills either Anivia or Ornn in-game, he has lines regretting doing both actions immediately.
  • No Indoor Voice: His voice constantly has an echoing and booming quality, owing to his huge size and violent nature.
    "Men speak in small words. I speak in thunder!
  • Not the Intended Use: Intended to be a close-range brawler who builds attack damage and health to shred opponents apart in extended fights, but a much rarer strategy is to take advantage of his strange AP ratios to build him like an AP bruiser or even a full mage. Skysplitter is normally used to shield Volibear and serve as an occasional ranged pokenote , but building full AP turns it into a terrifying AOE nuke.
  • Precursors: His 2020 voiceover reveals that he and the other Freljordian demigods are so ancient that not only did they directly form what we know as the Freljord, they existed in a land even before it he calls "the Vorrijaard".
    "My land was named by a god! It cannot be renamed by a coward."
  • Proud Warrior Race Guy: A tribe of people known as the Ursine follow him. They were once human, but used magic to twist themselves into half-animal hybrids, mostly bears, but other animals as well.
  • Punny Name: Based off the screen name of a Riot Games producer.
  • Retcon: When he was originally created for the game, Volibear was the warrior emissary of a tribal Freljordian race of bear-like humanoids called the Ursine, becoming its chief after going on a perilous journey that allowed him to channel the storm and gave him a vision of a war with the Watchers, leading him to prepare for war alongside Sejuani (or in an even earlier draft before her introduction, with Ashe). This was significantly reworked in 2017, with Volibear becoming a brutal, borderline eldritch demigod of war related to and on a similar power level as Ornn and Anivia, with the Ursine instead being his army of warrior vessels taken over by his animalistic influence.
  • Red Baron: He goes by many fearsome titles by the people of the Freljord, with the second most-known behind "Volibear" being "The Thousand-Pierced Bear".
  • Shock and Awe: The Volibear is perceived as a manifestation of storms, and he's as animalistic and electrifying in combat as that entails. While he can summon thunderclouds to zap enemies at range, he mostly uses brute force to channel the storm's power onto his opponents.
  • Spell My Name with a "The": He primarily refers to himself as Valhir, with "Volibear" being a title given to him. Thus he is typically referred to as the Volibear in lore, although he is referred to as just "Volibear" on some occasions such as Ornn's biography.
  • Spikes of Villainy: The Thousand-Pierced Bear gets his name in part from those jagged shards of True Ice embedded in him, mostly on his back. They're not just for show as he uses the True Ice to store his excess electricity.
  • Take a Third Option: A meta version regarding his 2020 visual/gameplay relaunch — while "Silence For the Damned" gave an early tease for Volibear's future as a grotesque eldritch horror that proved popular, Riot decided it was ultimately too unlike his original incarnation, and they refocused their efforts on making him more majestic and godlike like his original self. When the general feedback to this decision proved contentious with fans, Riot compromised by 1) beefing and roughing up his default appearance, and 2) fully committing the demonic aesthetic into the Thousand-Pierced Bear skin which was given to players who previously owned Volibear for free as an alternate look (not unlike Gangplank and his Captain skin for his relaunch).
  • Top-Heavy Guy: His reworked design places a lot more emphasis on his upper body, with huge pecs and massive arms that better sell his numerous clawing attacks.
  • Units Not to Scale: Like the other Freljordian demigods, Volibear is enormous in canon, but his size in actual gameplay is about as big as other champions. Subverted in an in-game event before his release where he shows up in the Howling Abyss, where he's so gigantic that slamming down his mighty fists knocks up everything in the entire map.
  • Unreliable Narrator:
    • Most of his new lore comes from Ornn's lore, as told in The Lost Tales of Ornn. As such, it's subject to the bias of the narrator. In this case, the narrator is a descendant of the tribe that followed Ornn and was wiped out by his battle with Volibear. Thus, the story has a very negative portrayal of Volibear, depicting him as petty, jealous, and needlessly violent.
    • Then again, Silence For The Damned portrays Volibear as even worse. At least pettiness and jealousy are vaguely humanlike traits. The Volibear seen in Silence is nothing less than a horrifying Eldritch Abomination, and a vicious butchering monster who massacres the innocent without a thought.
  • War God: He doesn't directly represent war as a concept, rather the fury of the storm. However, this entails bringing violence and chaos wherever he goes, so it's no surprise the association has resonated with those who interpret him.
  • We Used to Be Friends: Volibear and Ornn used to be Bash Brothers while conquering the Freljord, though Ornn grew increasingly indifferent to battle, and things fell apart when Ornn refused to support Volibear's new campaign, the resulting scuffle resulting in Volibear getting maimed and Ornn's followers killed.
  • Wendigo: His Thousand-Pierced Bear skin draws a lot of cues from the Native American monster, particularly the most recent depiction of it.

    Warwick, the Uncaged Wrath of Zaun 

Vander "Warwick", The Howler

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/warwick_originalloading_3.jpg
"Blood runs. They all run..."

Voiced by: Dave B. Mitchell (English/Current), Brian Sommer (English/Pre-VGU), José Ángel Fuentes (European Spanish), Arturo Mercado Jr. (Mexican Spanish/Current), Mario Sauret (Mexican Spanish/Pre-VGU) , Hiroshi Shirokuma (Japanese), Cassiano Ávila (Brazilian Portuguese/Current), Luiz Carlos Persy (Brazilian Portuguese/Pre-VGU) Hyo-Min Ahn (Korean), Alexander Golovchansky (Russian/1st Voice), Alexey Aptovtsev (Russian/Current)
Appears in:' CONV/RGENCE

"Spill blood... draw the beast!"

Warwick is a monster who hunts the gray alleys of Zaun. Transformed by agonizing experiments, his body is fused with an intricate system of chambers and pumps, machinery filling his veins with alchemical rage. Bursting out of the shadows, he preys upon those criminals who terrorize the city’s depths. Warwick is drawn to blood, and driven mad by its scent. None who spill it can escape him.

Warwick is a Diver champion who specializes in tracking and hunting down wounded enemies, sustaining himself in combat and growing in power as his enemies shed blood.
  • His passive, Eternal Thirst, causes Warwick's basic attacks to deal bonus magic damage. When Warwick is below half health, he also heals himself by the same amount of health, and triple that amount when he is very low on health.
  • With his first ability, Jaws of the Beast, Warwick lunges at a nearby enemy and bites down on them, damaging them based on the target's max health and healing himself. If he holds down the key, Warwick will also leap to the other side of the target, following them even if they move during this effect.
  • His second ability, Blood Hunt, passively causes enemy champions below half health to be marked as Blood Hunted, leaving behind a blood trail as they move that Warwick can see through the fog of war. Warwick gains increased movement speed while following the trail, and also gains increased attack speed when attacking Blood Hunted enemies; both the movement and attack speed bonuses are increased if the target's health is very low. When activated, Warwick briefly reveals the blood trails of all enemy champions in a large radius around him, regardless of their health, and marks the closest enemy champion as Blood Hunted for a few seconds. The cooldown of the ability decreases faster while no enemy champions are Blood Hunted.
  • His third ability, Primal Howl, reduces damage dealt to Warwick for a few seconds. When the duration ends or the ability is reactivated, Warwick howls, fearing nearby foes, forcing them to flee from him at reduced speed.
  • With his ultimate ability, Infinite Duress, Warwick leaps in a target direction, with the distance increasing based on his movement speed. He stops upon hitting an enemy champion, completely incapacitating them for a short duration as he savagely mauls them, damaging them over the duration and healing himself.

Warwick's alternate skins include Grey Warwick, Urf the Manatee, Big Bad Warwick, Tundra Hunter Warwick, Feral Warwick, Firefang Warwick, Hyena Warwick, Marauder Warwick, Lunar Guardian Warwick, PROJECT: Warwick, Old God Warwick, Winterblessed Warwick, and Prestige Winterblessed Warwick.

In season 1 of Teamfight Tactics, Warwick is a Tier 1 Wild Brawler. His ability, Infinite Duress, causes him to leap at the weakest enemy, suppressing and damaging them over short time while healing Warwick for the same amount. In season 2, he changed to using his Tundra Hunter Warwick skin and was changed to being a Glacial Predator, but he was otherwise unchanged. He was removed in season 3 before returning is season 4 as a Tier 4 Divine Hunter Brawler using his Lunar Guardian skin. His new ability, Primal Hunger, increases his movement speed, attack speed and grants him lifesteal for the rest of the round; Warwick howls whenever he scores a takedown in this state, further increasing the attack speed of himself and all allies who share a trait with him for a few seconds. He was removed in the Festival of Beasts mid-set update. He returns in season 5 using his Grey Warwick skin as a Tier 1 Forgotten Brawler. Infinite Duress returns as his ability, and in this iteration, Warwick also recasts the ability for free if his target dies while he is casting. He was removed in the Dawn of Heroes mid-set update, returning with his base skin in season 6 as a Tier 2 Chemtech Challenger. His new ability, Eternal Hunger, passively causes his basic attacks to deal bonus magic damage based on the target's current health and heal Warwick for a flat amount. He was removed in season 7, returning in season 8's Glitched Out!! mid-set update using his PROJECT: Warwick skin as a Tier 4 A.D.M.I.N. LaserCorps Brawler. His hack&SLASH ability passively gives Warwick bonus omnivamp, and empowers him further on his first takedown each round, granting him bonus attack speed and making him leap to new attack targets for the rest of combat. On activation, Warwick rapidly slashes his target 6 times dealing physical damage, and if the target dies before the spell ends, Warwick restores a small amount of mana for each remaining slash. In season 9, he returns to using his base skin as a Tier 2 Zaun Juggernaut Challenger. His Primal Howl ability passively causes his basic attacks to restore a small amount of his health, and on activation increases this passive healing for a few seconds before stunning adjacent enemies.
  • Adaptational Heroism: The original incarnation of Warwick was Singed's self-centered and ruthless mentor, overall lacking in sympathetic traits or circumstances. Following his VGU and lore updates, Warwick now leans more sympathetic, albeit still very brutal, as an Anti-Hero.
  • Adaptation Species Change: Hyena Warwick is... a name that speaks for itself.
  • Ambiguously Related: He has special interactions with both Jinx and Vi, implying he might recognize them from his past. Arcane adds to this even further with the implication that he might actually be Vander, the girls' father figure, who is last seen as a dead body being experimented on by Singed.
  • An Ice Person: Tundra Hunter Warwick has Black Ice covering his back. His right arm is made of it as well.
  • Anti-Hero: He is bloodthirsty, brutal and savage, yet he has genuinely good intentions and works to clean up Zaun by targeting and killing its worst criminals.
  • Art Evolution: He used to be somewhat ordinary by werewolf standards, but his current, reworked form has made him a Cyborg-Werewolf-Chimera thing, adding chemical tubes and massive, red-hot claws.
  • Artificial Limbs: His right arm was originally a mechanical prosthesis Singed used replaced during the experimentation. Warwick's bestial reformation made him regrow his lost hand from within it.
  • The Atoner: He started to solely hunt down and kill Zaun's criminals after he regained some memories of his past life as a gangster. Or at least, he limits his living space to where gang wars tend to happen to lessen the amount of times he kills an innocent. Even before that, he tried to put down his blade for a normal life only for his sins to always catch up with him.
  • Ax-Crazy: He hunts down Zaun's criminals not only to clean up the city, but also to satisfy his own thirst for blood. He's also pretty sure he accidentally kills good people sometimes, but he can't do much to stop himself.
  • Back from the Dead: When he was being experimented on at first, the chemicals weren't being accepted by his body...it wasn't until Singed tossed him out atop a pile of corpses that Warwick came back to life and also transformed fully.
  • Balance Buff: Warwick was always seen as a solid beginner's choice for jungling, but the lack of dimensionality in his kit was eventually seen as enough reason for him to be relaunched. When he received his VGU in 2017, pretty much all of his abilities remained intact in function and simplicity, but were given vastly more options for players to chase down opponents with:
    • Eternal Thirst was reworked into Eternal Hunter, remaining almost exactly the same as being passive lifesteal and bonus damage, but removing an extraneous "increasing damage over each hit" element.
    • Jaws of the Beast fills the same function of Hungering Strike as a short-ranged targeted burst of damage and self-healing, but not only works on a more practical Percent Damage Attack scaling than AP of before, it also has the added aspect of letting him snag onto enemies as they move, vastly improving his chasedown potential.
    • Blood Scent was tweaked into Blood Hunt as a more practical "target-seeking" passive ability. While Scent was an extended toggle to let him detect and chase down enemies on low health, Hunt makes it so that the effect is always available, with activating it giving him an even better burst of speed to enact his wrath when he so chooses.
    • Primal Howl replaces his attack speed buff from Hunter's Call into a more defensive-oriented ability, trading out added damage for a better means to protect himself while inflicting crowd control on enemies.
    • Infinite Duress was originally a point-and-click suppression effect, whose sheer efficacy ironically ended up consuming much of his power budget and limited his trading potential beyond it. Post-VGU, the ability became a skillshot that's trickier to land, but in turn gained range scaling based off his current movement speed, allowing him more ways to better surprise his poor victim as he rips them to shreds.
  • Berserk Button: Blood. And given what he does, there's plenty of it. The moment he smells it, he just loses all conscious thought and goes crazy.
  • The Big Bad Wolf: Lore-wise, played straight before his rework. Post-rework, he's this to the criminal scumbags he hunts down in Zaun.
  • Blessed with Suck: His transformation has turned him into an amazing beast with powerful attributes, but his thirst for blood gets in the way of him trying to actively do good and being less of a scary guy.
  • Body Horror: He's a genetically-spliced wolf chimera thing with several mechanical augmentations stuck inside him. He's not that pretty a sight to look at.
  • Cerebus Syndrome: Both played straight and inverted, surprisingly enough. While he has a more tragic and horrifying backstory compared to before, the Old Warwick was utterly evil. With his new lore, he may be a bloodthirsty monster but he is infinitely more noble than he was before the retcon.
  • Characterization Marches On: Warwick used to be "The Blood Hunter", a purely evil man who was cursed into becoming a savage beast and ended up enjoying it. He was drastically reinvented in 2017 as "The Uncaged Wrath of Zaun", a Reformed Criminal who by bad luck was plucked off the streets and brutally transformed into the beast, one attempting to channel his uncontrollable bloodlust into hunting down and killing criminals, making him more of an Unscrupulous Hero à la The Punisher.
  • Close-Range Combatant: Is a pure melee champion, and thus like most examples really needs to close the gap in order to do his work and to sustain himself. Thankfully he's equipped with really strong mobility tools thanks to his ultimate and the passive from Blood Hunt, and can then subdue retaliation from the stun on his howl, making the process of closing distance very intuitive for him. Though of course if one can zone and kite him with good area control, he can just as easily lose a life.
  • Covered in Scars: Post-VGU, and unlike most examples of this trope, they're self-inflicted from Warwick trying to claw out the machinery attached to him.
  • Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: Zig-zagged with his lore. He's a Cyborg mutant who is a near-perfect killing machine with dubious sanity, but it's ambiguous if the insane part is from the cybernetics or Singed's brutal experiments on him.
  • Cyborg: Not only is he a werewolf, he's a cyborg werewolf. Singed originally replaced one of his arms with a prosthetic, and all of the tubing and valves across his body were used to inject chemicals into his body.
  • Death of a Thousand Cuts:
    • His passive, Q and W are all basic-attack oriented, the latter being basically an attack speed steroid execute.
    • Also applies to his ultimate, Infinite Duress, which used to have him attack at a much faster pace pre-rework. Also applies on-hit effects that akin to auto-attacks as well.
  • Doing In the Wizard: His reworked lore and design retconned him from a standard werewolf born of a magical curse into a cybernetic bio-engineered beast created by Singed.
  • Dynamic Entry: Infinite Duress is not only potentially devastating in its CC, or surprising from its huge range, but it is fast. Always keep your eye out, otherwise you might be suddenly jumped on and mauled to shreds from a cyborg wolf-man from out of nowhere.
  • Expy: Of Strygwyr the Bloodseeker, the demon-orc hybrid wearing wolf pelts from Defense of the Ancients.
  • From Nobody to Nightmare: From a lowly street thug (who was already reformed before being experimented on by Singed) to a horrifying cyborg beast who hunts his old brethren.
  • Full-Contact Magic: Warwick always was noted for his ability to inflict magic damage on-contact both pre-rework and post-rework, via both his Q and ultimate naturally. In the latter case however for the rework, he also can do so with his passive on any basic attack while his Q is the only ability that still has an AP ratio on-top of a new higher AD ratio as well.
  • Glacier Waif: Warwick ironically, is actually pretty slow on his base move speed alone (335) compared to other champions, and is only reasonably fast when chasing down blood traits via Blood Hunt or when he's acquired boots.
  • Glass Cannon: Early on before he's built any proper defenses, Warwick's resistances are pretty weak, and he has to rely on his lifesteal to stay healthy for the early game. And event then, he has to rely on items to be tanky (without the use of Primal Howl that is).
  • Healing Factor: He's one of few junglers that can consistently keep his health high throughout his entire clearing route, thanks to both his passive and Jaws of the Beast. In lore, this is how he survives being discarded as nothing more than a near-dead pile of meat and machinery.
  • Horror Hunger: In the lore, Warwick thirsts for blood constantly. He decided he might as well put his predatory skills into killing the right targets.
  • Human Pin Cushion: Grey Warwick has a spectral blade wedged into his torso at all times.
  • Hunter of His Own Kind: Not that there are other werewolf-like individuals in-universe. His lore makes it clear though: he's a killer, and he hunts killers.
  • The Hyena: Hyena Warwick, which not only makes him laugh a lot more, but actually makes him resemble an actual hyena.
  • In a Single Bound: Infinite Duress's initiation begins as a single leap whose maximum distance increases based on its speed. Its range can get pretty huge if he has enough movement speed to back it up.
  • Injured Vulnerability: Blood Hunt causes wounded enemies to leave blood trails behind them that Warwick can see and track through the fog of war.
  • Irony: While details changed a lot due to Retcons, in many original stories, Warwick was Singed's master and had willingly transformed himself into his wolf-form. With Warwick's current lore, it seems that the tables have turned, with Singed having led to forming Warwick into what he is now against Warwick's own will while also making Warwick undergo a massive Heel–Face Turn.
  • It's Personal: Towards Singed for what he did to him, via one of his taunts:
  • Jerkass: This was more true in his previous incarnations, but come his current VGU, he's now something of a brutal vigilante, akin to The Punisher who embraces his savagery and bloodlust to hunt down some of Zaun's worst criminals.
  • The Krampus: Winterblessed Warwick very much evokes the imagery of Krampus; he's got those iconic horns, the forked tongue, and has what looks like a barrel big enough for carrying a child in it.
  • Lightning Bruiser: He's naturally durable and hard-hitting, but when he's stalking his prey, he can speed up greatly with Blood Hunt and immediately close gaps with Jaws of the Beast and Infinite Duress for the kill.
  • Man Bites Man: Jaw of the Beast has him literally chomping onto an enemy in order to heal himself.
  • Man on Fire: Firefang Warwick has flames bellowing out of his prosthetics and mouth.
  • Mix-and-Match Critters: He's not specifically a werewolf; Singed did a lot of gene-splicing to turn Warwick into what he is presently. While 'wolf' is the dominant trait, there's also traces of bats (such as his ears) and foxes (such as his tail).
  • Mythology Gag: In previous backstories prior to his full relaunch, Soraka was a major target of Warwick's, as he was seeking to eat her heart to stabilize his lycanthrope form. While the two have since been made completely separate, Warwick has a nod to this in a taunt against her:
  • Our Werewolves Are Different: While he's a chimeric creature now, he's a science experiment that's a mostly anthropomorphic wolf. Not to mention that he's undead and cybernetic.
  • Painful Transformation: It's clear that Singed's experiments were horrifically painful and traumatic.
  • Pay Evil unto Evil: After his VGU, Warwick's lore now has him as a failed experiment of Singed's, and he's now a brutal vigilante in Zaun's streets.
  • Precious Puppy: Hilariously, despite being a vicious Body Horror-ridden wolf monster, his joke has him act like an adorable puppy, circling on all fours and scratching the back of his ear with his leg, all with a dopey-looking agape mouth.
  • Red Baron: The gangs in the streets of Zaun refer to him as "The Howler".
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: Bright red, and glowing to boot.
  • Retcon: Before his 2017 VGU turned him into a chimeric cyborg Anti-Hero as a result of Singed's "failed" experiments, Warwick had substantially different backstories, with the most consistent trait being that he himself was a unambiguously villainous Mad Scientist (and was actually Singed's master) who turned into a werewolf either because of a botched alchemical potion or because he was cursed by Soraka. Later backstories made Soraka more central to his plot, with the last before the VGU entailing that he was pursuing her to consume her heart to prevent his mind from succumbing to feral urges.
  • Savage Wolves: Huge, strong and vicious, but also played-with in that he's more of a chimera with bat ears and a fox tail as opposed to a full-on wolf.
  • Scare Chord: One plays as Warwick jumps during Infinite Duress, as if it already wasn't enough of a potential Jump Scare.
  • Screaming Warrior: Howling, really, but close enough. Often the first thing you hear before Warwick even appears on the screen is the howl from Blood Hunt. Also upon triggering his Primal Howl.
  • Skill Gate Characters: Being on the low end of the IP cost spectrum makes him and Nunu a likely choice for a new player's first jungler. Warwick has high innate sustain that makes it easy to clear camps as well as an enemy-revealing ability, both of which make him a safe choice to learn how to jungle. While his pre-rework version plays this straight by limiting his ganking potential to only his Infinite Duress when he's able to hit level 6, post-rework Warwick can now close the gap with either his Jaws of the Beast, Blood Hunt active, Primal Howl (in terms of useful cc that can be used pre-level 6) or his Infinite Duress from an even greater distance which can be counterplayed through dodging and or meat-shielding it.
  • Super-Persistent Predator: He braves chemtech gunfire and a massive jump across a pit in Zaun to chase two hapless victims in his rework's teaser trailer. This extends to his mechanics too; Warwick is at his deadliest when he and his target are both on the brink of death, granting him a huge burst in healing and aggression for pressing the attack. At higher levels when he's more durable, he can perform a lot of risky dives, like under enemy towers, to finish a target.
  • Super-Senses: If you're at low health, it can trigger one of his abilities and reveal your location to him. On the other hand, it can also warn you that he's in the area. Where he is in the very wide area, however, is a different issue.
  • Super-Toughness: When built fully defensive, Warwick's innate sustain makes him extremely difficult to kill, as the sustain from his passive is independent of the damage his auto attacks deal and he has arguably the single best attack speed steroid in the game. Even if he only has two or three defensive items built, Warwick can hold the line against an entire enemy team far longer than you'd expect.
  • That Man Is Dead: Claims that the man he used to be was his very first victim.
    • In a more literal sense, Warwick actually did die during Singed's experimentation on him. However, after his death, the chemical chamber Singed installed on his back finally worked unopposed to his body, and successfully completed the transformation, which revived him.
  • Took a Level in Badass: Pre-rework, Warwick was someone who was rather subpar in terms of just kit and only had his ultimate as his only gap-closer; post-rework, he's able to effectively both execute and chase-down low-health targets while also having some reasonable control and counterplay for his signature ultimate.
  • Tragic Monster: His backstory states he was once a gangster turned into a good, honest man who wanted to leave his past behind him. Unfortunately, there's very little of that man left after Singed got ahold of him.
  • Trauma-Induced Amnesia: The endless experimentation Singed inflicted on him was so traumatic Warwick lost all memory of his name or who he was. He only remembers a few select hazy images of Vi and Jinx, as well as that Singed is the one who turned him into The Howler.
  • Turns Red: In his rework teaser trailer, his chemtech barrels turn red once he smells blood. This is a warning to whoever he's smelled that they are screwed, as the protagonist's point of view reveals- He will not stop hunting them.
  • Walking Shirtless Scene: The outfit her wears resembles a torn straight jacket, exposing his upper body and all the implants attached.
  • Was Once a Man: He was once a human man, now turned into a werewolf-zombie-cyborg through torturous experiments.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: After his VGU, Warwick is a vigilante that brutally hunts down and murders Zaun's criminals, yet he does so because he genuinely wants do make Zaun a better place.
  • Werewolves Are Dogs: Played for Laughs; Warwick's joke emote has him sit excitedly with his tongue dangling out like he's about to get a treat.
  • Wolverine Claws: Now instead of having finger armor giving him large claws, his nails are massive, especially his right arm (as seen in the picture).

    Wukong, the Monkey King 

Kong "Wukong"

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/wukong_originalloading.jpg
"I will be the best."

Voiced by: Spike Spencer (English), Jorge Teixeira (European Spanish), Oliver Magaña (Mexican Spanish), Masako Nozawa (Japanese), Leonardo Santhos (Brazilian Portuguese), Min-Hyuk Jang (Korean), Sergey Smirnov (Russian)

"Just try to stop me!'"

Wukong is a vastayan trickster who uses his strength, agility, and intelligence to confuse his opponents and gain the upper hand. After finding a lifelong friend in the warrior known as Master Yi, Wukong became the last student of the ancient martial art known as Wuju. Armed with an enchanted staff, Wukong seeks to prevent Ionia from falling to ruin.

Wukong is a Diver champion that excels at using stealth, clones and trickery to easily slip in and out of fights, confusing his opponents before crushing them with his staff.
  • The basis of Wukong's kit is his second ability, Warrior Trickster. When used, Wukong dashes a short distance in a target direction, briefly becoming invisible and leaving behind a duplicate of himself at his original location. The decoy attacks surrounding enemies for a few seconds before vanishing, and interacts with Wukong's other abilities.
  • His passive, Stone Skin, grants Wukong increased armor and health regeneration based on his max health. Whenever he or his decoy damage an enemy champion or monster, these bonuses are briefly increased, stacking up to six times.
  • His first ability, Crushing Blow, enhances the next basic attack of both Wukong and his decoy, increasing its range and damage and making it reduce the target's armor for a few seconds. The cooldown of the ability is reduced whenever Wukong or his decoy damage an enemy.
  • With his third ability, Nimbus Strike, Wukong rides his flying cloud and dashes towards a nearby enemy, damaging them upon arrival; he also sends up to two images of himself to dash and damage other nearby enemies. Upon hitting the target, both Wukong and his decoy gain bonus attack speed for a few seconds.
  • With his ultimate ability, Cyclone, both Wukong and his decoy start spinning with their staffs stretched outwards for a short duration, gaining bonus movement speed, continuously damaging nearby enemies based on their max health and knocking up enemies the first time they are hit by the ability. Once the effect ends, Wukong has a few seconds afterwards to reactivate the ability, spinning a second time.

Wukong's alternate skins include Volcanic Wukong, General Wukong, Jade Dragon Wukong, Underworld Wukong, Radiant Wukong, Lancer Stratus Wukong, Battle Academia Wukong, and Elderwood Wukong.

In season 3 of Teamfight Tactics, Wukong uses his Lancer Stratus Wukong skin and is a 4 cost Chrono Vanguard. With his Cyclone ability, he spins rapidly around, dealing magic damage to nearby units over 3 seconds. The first time he hits each enemy, he knocks them into the air and stuns them. In season 4, he is reworked into a Tier 1 Divine Vanguard using his Radiant Wukong skin. His ability was changed to Crushing Blow, which deals bonus percentage attack damage to his target and stuns them for a few seconds. He was removed in season 5, returning with the same ability in season 7's Uncharted Realms mid-set update using his Jade Dragon Wukong skin as a Tier 1 Jade Warrior. In season 8, he returns to using his Lancer Stratus Wukong as a Tier 1 Mecha: PRIME Defender. His new Stone Skin ability has him spin around once, dealing magic damage to surrounding enemies and granting Wukong bonus armor and magic resistance for each enemy hit for a few seconds. He was removed in season 9, returning to his Radiant Wukong skin in season 11 as a Tier 5 Great Heavenly Sage, whose Heavenly bonus grants increased attack speed. His Great origin is a unique trait that grows Wukong's staff for the rest of combat with every three spell casts, increasing the range of his abilities. His Legendary Prowess ability cycles between three different effects that occur in a fixed order. The first cast strikes his target for physical damage and briefly stuns them, the second has him spin his staff dealing the same damage in a 1-hex radius around him, and the third has him dash to a position where he can hit the most targets before slamming his staff down in a 3-hex line, dealing increased damage to all enemies hit.
  • Armor-Piercing Attack: His Crushing Blow can inflict this for a few seconds on any target via a percentage of their armor (but the main difference here is armor reduction, not penetration).
  • Blood Knight: He left the Plague Jungles because he wanted to find stronger opponents to fight.
  • Carry a Big Stick: Of the magically enlarging kind. His /joke involves him planting it on the ground, then slowly elongating it until it can barely fit on the screen. What's more, the staff is apparently alive, seeing how upon death, it tunnels into the ground like a snake.
    "I bet I can hit their base from here!"
  • Confusion Fu: Misdirection is the name of the game with his decoys. There's very little difference between him having suddenly stopped moving and one of his decoys, so the variety of deceits even a savvy enemy can fall for is large; cause not only is it about knowing if he used a clone or not, he may as well could've done anything he wanted while stealthed (such as running away to a certain location you wouldn't expect or getting ready to burst you down with his abilities off cooldown).
  • Crossdressing Voices: The Japanese dub is voiced by Masako Nozawa, a female voice actress known for her voice as Gokunote  from Dragon Ball Z.
  • Death of a Thousand Cuts: From his Crushing Blow having its cooldown reduced every time Wukong smacks an enemy, Warrior Trickster making a clone whose attacks count for said reduction, Nimbus Strike giving him an attack speed boost, and Cyclone shredding apart enemies in the vicinity, Wukong is very much about getting many hits as possible and as fast as possible.
  • Determinator: Wukong is driven by challenge — he seeks out the strongest fighters in the world to pit himself against them - and even if he loses the battle, he learns from it and tries again.
    "Every mistake is a lesson."
  • Doppelgänger Attack: His Decoys will hang out motionless for a couple of seconds, absorb any punishment possibly thrown their way, and then deliver a spin attack before disappearing in a puff of smoke, which can easily open up a ton of possibilities to either trick opponents into thinking he used it, or doing almost anything behind one's back while in stealth. His other attack combines this with Dynamic Entry as Wukong and two clones of him charge at the enemy, but only if there are two other targets nearby.
  • Glass Cannon: While some builds can focus on this aspect of him due to his solid ability ratios up to late game, he's not very tanky in the early game without items (not to mention his passive has fairly low numbers early game until he starts to level up more often), which goes to show how well he can scale with them late game once he does get them of course. Even then, some champions are much better tanks than he is. This can also happen to him when enemies are also out of Wukong's sight, as Wukong's passive only works with nearby enemies he is able to see (this by proxy can allow skilled players using certain champions with stealth to assassinate him if possible).
  • I Know You Know I Know: Because pressing 'S' to stop looks almost identical to having pressed 'W' for Decoy, some Wukong players will simply stop instead of actually casting the ability, sending enemies upon a merry chase after an imaginary one. Savvy Wukong players can play some fun mind games based on whether or not his opponents will eventually catch onto this, or knowing where he even went while stealthed in the first place.
  • Instant Expert: Played with. In Yi's backstory, Wukong effortlessly copied the Wuju swordsman's moves and turned them back on him. But as Wukong's antics slowly drained Yi's anger away, Yi finally mastered Wuju, and then he moved too fast for Wukong to handle. So while Wukong is an Instant Expert, in this case expert is not the same thing as mastery, which still requires training and time.
  • Launcher Move: His ultimate. This alone is what can easily rocket him into a solid pick for almost any team comp, due to his ultimate's useful area-of-effect crowd control (with the damage output being icing on the cake), allowing him to initiate a ton of teamfights very well at any point in the game, as long as he can get into the proper position.
  • Lightning Bruiser: Most good and/or properly built Wukongs can be fast and tricky, and also bulky fighters who can charge into melees and fight their way through, gaining armor for each nearby enemy that spikes up when he actually starts fighting them. His ultimate also gives him extra movement speed. Not only that, he can easily scale well up to late game with enough items and is able to assassinate many squishy targets with powerful burst damage, as well as close in with either his ult or his Nimbus Strike (which can also give him attack speed as well). His decoy can also allow for an extra boost of misdirection as well, and his aforementioned ultimate with his decoy and his gap-closing dash makes him a very solid initiator/area-of-effect diver.
  • Man on Fire: His Volcanic Wukong skin engulfs him in traditional fire, his Jade Dragon skin gives him a few green flames on his gauntlets, and his Underworld Wukong skin gives him a few traces of a different type of fire.
  • Magikarp Power: Unlike most AD caster bruisers (and similarly to his Master Yi), Wukong has a pretty fragile early game and is quite reliant on items to deal significant damage, meaning he'll have have to be careful with early damage setups and trades. Once he gets going, however, his burst assassination and bulky teamfighting presence is a force to be reckoned with.
  • Me's a Crowd: Two of his attacks create a clone of himself, either offensively or defensively.
  • Monkey King Lite: He is Sun Wukong from the ancient Chinese novel Journey to the West. Including his staff, being born from stone, getting a master and being able to make clones of himself. Though of course, he's not the actual Sun Wukong in spite of the same name, title and fighting style, and never staged an assault to the resident heaven, but he's aesthetically very close. The Chinese servers somewhat play with this however, in that they state outright that he is the Sun Wukong himself, monikers and all.
  • Multiple Demographic Appeal: Created with the explicit intent of advertising the game in China, Korea, and Japan.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: Wukong to Master Yi, respectively. One is a Blood Knight who wants To Be a Master, the other is an Old Master.
  • Simple, yet Awesome: Wukong is among the most mechanically simple of champions, with a pure stat-based passive, an auto-attack steroid that encourages constant attacks, a versatile decoy, a point-and-click AoE gap-closer, and a ridiculous Spin Attack initiator for an ultimate, making him a pretty solid pick for beginners.
  • Spin Attack: His ultimate, Cyclone, which can be cast twice in succession and knocks up enemies at the start of each! Garen's got competition!
  • Stealth Expert: His Decoy's secondary effect. Wukong is also the only champion that has a stealth ability that is not classified as an assassin, even though he can easily play as one if one is skilled enough with him.
  • Student–Master Team: Having both Wukong and Master Yi on the same team is a deadly combination - Wukong will dash in, cause confusion and control opposition, leaving them ripe for Old Master Yi to Highlander in and clean up house. Against each other, a Wukong will have a hard time with a Yi - Highlander means that even if Yi is misdirected by the clone, it won't be long before he catches up again, not to mention that a Yi will likely be packing lifesteal, so using the clone to escape might actually heal him in the process. On the other hand, Wukong's ultimate knocks opponents up, which is a type of CC that Highlander offers no protection against, and the movement speedboost means that a Yi without his ultimate will have a hard time escaping or catching up. Not to mention both of them can even inflict massive damage if they both get fed, either as enemies to each other, or worse, if both Wukong and Yi are fed on the same team.
  • Taken for Granite: Upon death, he will turn into a white meditating statue. This is likely a reference to his origin story, in which he was 'born' from a runestone.
  • Taking the Bullet: Even if enemies have grown wise to the fact that Wukong has used his clone, it is still a very solid skill-shot blocker. Just don't be too close to your clone when you plan to guard against a skill-shot with an area-of-effect, especially if you use it too late. Wukong will still get hit, even when stealthed.
  • To Be a Master: His quotes allude to this.
  • Vocal Dissonance: As a consequence of his Crossdressing Voices in the Japanese dub, where he sounds like a childish trickster. Unlike Dragon Ball's version of Sun Wukong/Son Goku (who his voice actress was cast as an Actor Allusion to), League's version of Wukong has the additional justification of being an actual monkey much closer to the source material, but lacks the justification of being introduced as a child.
  • Worthy Opponent: His reason for leaving the Plague Jungles behind; He wanted to find someone who could best him so that he had another top to reach for.

Top