New League of Legends champion Vex revealed: release date, abilities, lore

Isaac McIntyre
New League of Legends champion Vex revealed splash art.

Riot Games has revealed Vex the Gloomist, League of Legends 157th champion, as well as her abilities, ultimate, new skins, and her Season 11 release date — which is fast approaching. Here’s everything you need to know about the new LoL character.

Get ready “Normies,” she’s here.

Late last year, Riot Games promised everything regarding League of Legends ⁠— events, champion releases, and updates ⁠— would be related to a game-wide event, the “Sentinels of Light”, at least for the first half of the year. So far they’ve kept to their promise with new characters Viego, Gwen, and Akshan being main characters in the Ruination storyline. Now, the storyline has come to a close, and its final champion has now joined the Rift, Vex.

The “gloomy mage” was first teased back in June 2020, made a cameo in the Rise of the Sentinels event, and now she’s finally hitting live servers.

Here’s everything we know about LoL’s 157th champion.

Yordle mage teaser LoL Norra
The original “Gloomy Mage” teasers only revealed Vex’s looming shadows.

Who is Vex, the Gloomist?

Vex is hardly a happy-go-lucky Yordle we’ve become accustomed to seeing out of Bandle City. Instead, the Gloomist is full of angst, trying to put a stop to anything colorful or hyper.

“League champs are usually designed to be aspirational. They’re often brave heroes who are destined to save Runeterra, or powerful villains hellbent on world domination,” writer Erika ‘Cashmiir’ Haas explained.

“So what if we had a champion that’s just meant to be relatable? Someone you might see yourself in. Somebody who just doesn’t give a damn.”

While Riot originally intended for Vex to be an artillery mage, her original portal-placing, ability-warping kit was scrapped due to technical constraints.

Scrapping the kit did allow Riot to work more on intertwining her new control mage abilities with her character: “She’s not just moody and apathetic. There’s more going on in her furry little yordle head that the team wanted to express.”

Vex LoL abilities revealed

Passive — Doom ‘n Gloom

Doom: Periodically, Vex becomes empowered by Doom, causing her next basic ability to interrupt dashes and Fear enemies.

Gloom: Whenever a nearby enemy dashes or blinks, they become marked with Gloom. Vex’s next basic attack against a marked enemy detonates the mark, dealing bonus damage and refunding part of Doom’s cooldown.

Q — Mistral Bolt

Vex launches a wave forward, dealing magic damage to enemies it passes through. After a short delay, the wave accelerates but has reduced width. Mistral Bolt detonates Gloom on any marked enemies it hits.

W — Personal Space

Vex gains a shield and emits a shockwave, dealing magic damage to enemies around her. Personal Space detonates Gloom on any marked enemies it hits.

E — Looming Darkness

Shadow flies to a location, increasing in size as it travels. On arriving, Shadow deals magic damage, slows, and marks enemies hit with Gloom.

R — Shadow Surge

Shadow flies forward, marking and dealing magic damage to the first enemy champion hit. Vex can then recast this ability to have Shadow pull her to the marked target, dealing additional magic damage.

If the marked target dies within a short time of taking damage from Shadow Surge, Vex can cast Shadow Surge again within a few seconds.

Vex concept art League of Legends
Vex was originally meant to be an artillery mage before Riot scrapped those plans.

Will Vex be getting a LoL skin on release?

Although she was a part of the Ruination event, Vex will not be launching with one of the Ruined skins — that event is long gone.

Instead, she will launch alongside the Dawn & Night event with a Dawnbringer skin. It’s a bit of an anti-thesis to her gloomy self, decking out the miserable Yordle with bright colors instead of her usual black-and-purple.

You can check out Dawnbringer Vex below:

League of Legends' Vex's Dawnbringer skin
Dawnbringer Vex kind of goes against everything the Gloomist stands for, but we’re here for it.

Vex LoL release date

Despite being announced on the eve of League of Legends patch 11.18, you’ll have to wait another couple of weeks to get your hands on Vex. The Gloomist will arrive on Summoner’s Rift on September 23, alongside patch 11.19.

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About The Author

Isaac was formerly the Australian Managing Editor at Dexerto. Isaac began his writing career as a sports journalist at Fairfax Media, before falling in love with all things esports and gaming. Since then he's covered Oceanic and global League of Legends for Upcomer, Hotspawn, and Snowball Esports.