Counter Guide

How to Beat Hwei

Matchup Guide · Evergreen · 3 Counter Picks

Hwei picks from nine spells before he even touches his ultimate, and the one that fears you flies 1100 units.

Lane against him and you'll spend the whole time reading paint. Fire lands from one side, a lightning bolt drops from almost two thousand units off, and if you step into the wrong eye you're rooted while the rest of it comes down. He's hard to predict and he never has to come near you to do it. What he can't do is leave. There's no dash anywhere in his kit, and every spell that fears, roots or pulls you shares one cooldown. Once you've seen it, you've got a window. For how he stacks up this patch, see our solo queue tier list.

Matchup Snapshot Hwei, the Visionary

Where You Meet HimMid lane

Damage TypeMagic

Why He Is FrustratingPoke and crowd control from long range

MobilityNo dash, one speed path

Biggest ThreatGrim Visage [EQ]

Hardest CounterEkko

What a Counter Needs

A dash or a blink that reaches him after his crowd control is spent
A way to survive one full combo, whether that's a rewind, a shield or a moment of untargetability

Patch 26.18 Matchup Data

Who Beats Hwei on Patch 26.18

Best Picks Into Hwei

Ekko983 games54.5%
Katarina1,276 games53.3%
Fizz1,349 games52.6%
Diana685 games52.3%
Aurelion Sol497 games51.9%

Picks Hwei Beats

Vladimir645 games43.0%
Lissandra1,086 games43.4%
Mel927 games44.1%
Ryze762 games44.8%

Win rates are for the champion listed, in the mid lane against Hwei. They come from Nerfplz's own ranked solo queue games on Patch 26.18, Silver and above, 43,893 Hwei games in all. Only matchups that show up in at least 1% of those games are listed.

Hwei Overview

Strengths: What Makes Him Dangerous

Grim Visage [EQ] fears you from 1100 units. It knocks you down and slows you hard while you run (harder still the farther away you were when it hit).
Severing Bolt [QW] reaches 1900 units. It's stronger against someone standing alone or held in place, and it scales up the lower your health gets.
Every second spell explodes. His passive leaves a mark on the first hit, and the next damaging spell he lands turns it into a blast. You've got under a second before it goes off.
He can shield himself. Pool of Reflection [WW] builds a shield for as long as he's inside it (it covers his allies too, at a bit less strength).

Weaknesses: Where You Get In

His crowd control shares one cooldown. Grim Visage [EQ], Gaze of the Abyss [EW] and Crushing Maw [EE] all come from one mood, and casting any of them puts all three away for 10 to 12 seconds.
He's got no dash. Fleeting Current [WQ] is a speed path. It's fast, but a champion who blinks onto him gets there first.
His big hits aren't instant. Severing Bolt [QW] lands a full second after it's cast, and Molten Fissure [QE] waits 0.6 seconds before it erupts (the lava it leaves behind lasts longer, so don't stand in that either).
You can walk out of the passive. The blast goes off where you were hit, not where you are, so a step to the side after the second spell is enough.

Countering Hwei

Any one of these helps:

Wait for the fear, then go. After Grim Visage [EQ] he's got no root, no pull and no fear for around ten seconds. That's your engage window.
Keep moving. Nearly all his damage lands on a delay, so you'll eat a lot less of it if you never walk in a straight line.
Don't stand next to your jungler. Crushing Maw [EE] and the passive both hit an area, and two champions in one spot means he's got two targets for everything.

Stuck without a counter pick? You can still play it.

Playing Into Hwei Without a Counter

Watch for the eye. Gaze of the Abyss [EW] sits on the ground for three seconds and locks onto the nearest champion it can see, so stay out of it and it'll expire on its own (its lock-on shows as a dashed line, and you get about a third of a second before it launches).

Trade after he's used something from the Torment mood, never before. If he opened with Gaze of the Abyss [EW] (the eye), that counts, since it shares the cooldown with the fear.

Keep your health up. Severing Bolt [QW] gets stronger as you get lower, and it's the spell that finishes people from off screen (it's the longest-range spell he has, ultimate included).

Best Hwei Counters

Each of these three beats him a different way. We'd pick whichever one you're already comfortable on.

Ekko Undoes the Combo

Hwei wins by landing a combo from range. Chronobreak [R] rewinds Ekko to where he was four seconds earlier and heals him, with the heal growing the more health he lost in those four seconds (up to four times its minimum). He's in stasis as it starts and immune to displacement during it, so Crushing Maw [EE] can't pull him back into the fight.

Getting in is the easy part. Phase Dive [E] rolls him forward (it even crosses walls, if they're thin) and his next attack blinks him onto the target. Hwei's got nothing to answer that with.

Katarina Waits Out the Fear

Katarina doesn't have to dodge everything. She only needs Grim Visage [EQ] gone. Once it's out, Shunpo [E] blinks her 725 units onto Hwei or onto one of her own daggers, and every dagger she picks up takes a big chunk off the cooldown of Shunpo [E].

A takedown cuts 15 seconds off all her ability cooldowns, so if Hwei dies she's ready for whoever's next.

Fizz Hops Over the Paint

Playful [E] puts Fizz on top of his trident, untargetable, for most of a second. That's long enough to sit out the snap of Crushing Maw [EE] or the strike of Severing Bolt [QW], and a Fizz who hops at the right moment takes nothing from either.

Chum the Waters [R] reaches 1300 units. It attaches to Hwei if it hits him, and two seconds later a shark knocks him up. He's got no dash, and walking won't help, because the lure moves with him.

Itemizing Against Hwei

We'd start with Mercury's Treads. They cut the length of the fear and the root by 30%, and against a champion whose whole plan is holding you still, that's a lot. Banshee's Veil blocks the next ability that hits you (a blocked spell doesn't leave his passive's mark either). Maw of Malmortius is the fighter's version, a magic shield that kicks in when a hit would drop you low. Kaenic Rookern fits a lane where he pokes and waits, since it rebuilds its shield after fifteen seconds without magic damage.