Viktor

The Cost of Glorious Evolution

Viktor isn’t the man he used to be, and that’s exactly the point. He’s undergone what he calls the Glorious Evolution — a full conversion into a biomechanical form — on the reasoning that removing emotion removes suffering along with it. To the followers who’ve gathered around him in Zaun, that transformation has made him something close to a messiah, a living proof of concept for the hexcore he wants to bring to the rest of the world, whether or not the world is ready to understand it.

An Equation That Permits Violence

To Viktor, violence isn’t a moral failure — it’s just another variable in a larger calculation, one he’s willing to use if the equation calls for it. That cold logic runs straight into how he plays: as a mage out of the mid lane, his control over a fight grows the closer he lets an opponent get, and the color of the light on his staff — purple, yellow, blue, red — tells anyone paying attention exactly how many of his abilities he’s already augmented. His passive, also called Glorious Evolution, gathers Hex Fragments from every kill, and every hundred fragments permanently augments one of his active abilities. Siphon Power blasts an enemy for a shield and an empowered next attack, with its augment adding extra shield strength and bonus effects; Gravity Field slows anything caught in its pull and stuns whatever lingers too long, gaining a bonus effect once augmented; Hextech Ray cuts a damaging line across the field and, augmented, follows up with an explosion; and Arcane Storm, his ultimate, conjures a storm that interrupts channeled abilities and keeps damaging anyone nearby, redirectable as the fight moves. Fellow Zaunites such as Ekko grew up in the same undercity Viktor is trying to transform, though few of them would call his particular vision progress.