With the community buzzing over various leaks of the long-expected League of Legends champion Bel’Veth, we take a look at what we know so far.
“Having playtested Bel’Veth a lot over the last 6 months. I will say that slapping the ever-living shit out of the entire enemy team as the Empress of the Void is one of, if not the most satisfying things in League of Legends” – Ryan ‘Reav3′ Mireles, Riot Lead Champion Producer
She’s flappy, she’s slappy, and she’s not happy.
With gameplay footage of Bel’Veth, a new fighter designed for the jungle. She was suddenly revealed on the MSI Spanish stream as well as on Tencent Video in China. The League of Legends community has been in an uproar about the character design of the impending champion.
Despite a visually impressive cinematic reveal, her stingray-esque appearance and fin-slapping auto attacks in-game have made Bel’Veth the subject of countless criticisms and memes in the LoL community.
While the gameplay footage seems to indicate that former leaks of Bel’Veth’s kit on the 11th of May in a now-deleted Reddit post may have been on the money (and with no official kit from Riot). It remains to be seen exactly what the Empress of the Void will have in store.
Bel’Veth’s abilities according to the leak.
Please note that this kit is not officially confirmed by Riot. It is included here for interest purposes only.
- Passive – Death in Lavender
Enemies drop items that give Bel’veth stacks for her passive. The passive forms a swarm-based on the stacks, which grants Bel’Veth lifesteal against jungle camps.
When attacking a turret or epic monster, the stacks are consumed and the swarm is released, healing Bel’Veth and damaging her target.
Passive – releases an “arrow” in 4 diagonals
Active – The active is a dash that slows the target and deals damage. While her ultimate – Endless Banquet – is active it procs her passive to enemies she has passed.
If Bel’Veth damages an enemy (big/epic monster or champion) with her dash in the direction of the arrow, it refreshes Q and she’s able to cast it again.
When damaging small monsters or minions in the direction of the arrow, 40% of the cooldown is restored.
Bel’Veth disappears into a “sea” for a short time, gaining increased movement speed and ignoring terrain. She then pops up to do a knock-up aoe that deals damage.
While in Endless Banquet she is un-targetable and the knock-up does a short stun.
Channels a vortex that pulls enemies towards her, dealing damage for each second they’re caught in the maelstrom.
Bel’Veth is unable to move while channeling, however, takes reduced damage and returns a percentage of all damage received.
While in Endless Banquet, Royal Maelstro deals a percentage of true damage per second, Bel’Veth has higher damage reduction and at the end of the channel, there is an aoe explosion.
- Ultimate – Endless Banquet
Bel’Veth changes forms, giving a buff to all of her abilities and gaining increased health, magic reduction, armor, and damage.
While in Endless Banquet, collecting passive stacks heals Bel’Veth for a flat percentage.
She consumes all passive stacks to form a swarm that damages nearby enemy champions.
The swarm has a limited life span but refreshes upon killing enemy champions.
It’s impossible to say whether this kit is legitimate or not, though well-known leakers such as Ryscu and Big Bad Bear seems to be leaning that way.
Bel’Veth Lore
As the shattered Void crashed into reality, the entities within leaked into existence in pain and terror, consuming everything within their reach. As they consumed, they reforged themselves in violence and the Void with them. Nourished by the war and greed of humans, a sinister seed began to grow and began to want. Out of this want, the Void formed itself a leader. An Empress. Bel’Veth.
Named for the city devoured by the Void to give her life, Bel’Veth is a horrifying entity. Within her mind is a tangled web of human knowledge, experience, and memory. But one city is not enough. No. Bel’Veth wants more. Needs more. If she has her way, she will destroy the Watchers and consume existence itself.
The lore is expanded in the champ’s official color story Pinwheel where an unfortunate Kai’Sa comes face to face with the Void Empress and finds herself subject to an impossible choice.
Despite the hype, Riot Lead Champion Producer, Ryan “Reav3” Mireles, has confirmed that Bel’Veth is not the incoming monster champion that the dev team has been talking about. We can expect another monster champion to be released in early 2023.
In a dev blog post, Reav3 previously stated that despite the most widely played heroes being humanoids, the team would like to make more creatures, with monsters in his view being an aesthetic subcategory of creatures.
He broke down the champion types as the following:
“Humans include any champion that is mostly human, or very close to it, like Lucian, Senna, Yone, Pyke, and Jhin. Humanoids include any champion that is half-human or at least is pretty close anatomically to a human, like Lillia, Urgot, Renekton, Aatrox, yordles, and so on. The last category is creatures, which includes any champion that doesn’t resemble a human at all, like Rek’Sai, Vel’Koz, Yuumi, Aurelion Sol, Skarner, etc. It’s worth noting that this isn’t an exact science (is Zac more humanoid or creature?), but the general categories are helpful.”
More gameplay footage of Bel’Veth can be seen on the official League of Legends “Top Secret” Channel in unlisted gameplay videos 1, 2 and 3.