The newest battlemage hops into the Rift! Aurora was advertised as the newest addition to toplane, as a vastayan mage purpose-built for the lane, much like Vladimir in his launch. You better be all ears, because we’ll be updating you on her lore, abilities and launch skin shortly.
A vastaya born in the village of Aamu, home to the Bryni tribe, Aurora spent her youth playing with critters no one else could see, from a world they did not understand. Even her parents did not understand her, dismissing her friends as imaginary. Aurora's aunt, however, encouraged her to embrace her differences. As Aurora grew up, she came to realize her friends were not imaginary. They were merely from a realm only her eyes could see. The spirit realm. She meticulously began to document them, studying the local spirits in hopes that her work would lead others to better understand her and her friends. Over time, she transitioned to helping both mortals and spirits understand eachother and themselves, finding this as her life's purpose. She finally came across a feral and afraid elk spirit named Haestryr, to this point, the first one she felt she couldn't help by herself. She journed away from Aamu, in hopes of finding Udyr, the most powerful spirit walker in the Freljord. The shaman recognized the immense power of Haestryr, but said that the spirit was too lost to commune with, and encouraged her to seek out the demigods for answers.
She first searched for the Great Ram, Ornn, finally finding Hearth-Home. Although the demigod initially claimed to be too busy to help, he relented after Aurora took the initiative to tidy and reorganize his dwelling. The Forge God revealed her spirit companion's name, and the fact that he was a sibling to Ornn himself. Hestrelk, as he was once commonly called, was a powerful demigod that had lost its identity after the waning worship of the Old Gods, becoming a distorted shadow of their old self. Ornn pointed the witch to speak to his brother, Valhir (Volibear), and the cryophoenix Ysjarn (Anivia) for answers on how to restore the spirit's self. As thanks for tidying up Hearth-Home, the Ram forged a new wand for the witch to aid her in her quest.
Believing these demigods hold the key to Haestryr’s recovery, Aurora has left Hearth-Home and now traverses through the material and spirit realms of her frozen homeland in unwavering pursuit of their knowledge.
Aurora's damaging basic attacks and abilities apply a stack of Spirit Abjuration to enemies for 4 seconds, refreshing on subsequent applications and stacking up to 3 times. The third stack against a target consumes them all to deal bonus magic damage equal to 6% (+ 1% per 100 AP) of the target's maximum health. Upon consuming the stacks from a champion or epic monster, Aurora additionally exorcises them, entering Spirit Mode for 3 seconds and freeing a Spirit that follows her, stacking until the end of Spirit Mode. Subsequent exorcisms refresh the duration.
Spirit Mode: Aurora heals herself for 10 − 35 (based on level) × (100% + 5% per Spirit) every second and gains 5% − 10% (based on level) (+ 3% per 100 AP) (+ 5% per Spirit) bonus movement speed.
Summary: Aurora’s attacks and abilities give a stack on enemies, and three stacks deal max health damage to the target. Getting three stacks on a champion or epic monster also triggers Spirit Mode, giving her one spirit, giving her extra movement speed and passive healing for the duration. Exorcising another three stacks again will refresh the duration, giving her another spirit.
Usage: The strongest reason for her to be in top lane. As you’re about to find out, popping three stacks quickly is not very hard, and throughout a long trade, she can easily get 2-3 spirits going for the fight, allowing her to maneuver out of classic toplane rundowns and allowing her to run people down if she wishes to as well. This makes her specifically slippery and survivable. She does have to keep her stacks up before the 3 seconds expire, though. If you’re getting toplane Viktor flashbacks, you’re in the right ballpark. Make double-sure to weave autos between abilities to stack up spirits faster.
Cost: 60 mana Cooldown: 8 / 7.5 / 7 / 6.5 / 6s Cast Time: 0.25s Aurora fires a bolt of energy in the target direction that deals magic damage to enemies hit and marks them with a curse for 5 seconds. Twofold Hex can be recast after 0.5 seconds of marking at least one target.
Upon recast, expunges the curse from all marked targets, drawing the spiritual energy back to her as bolts that each deal magic damage to all enemies they pass through, increased by 0% − 100% (based on target's missing health). Subsequent bolts against an enemy deal 20% damage.
INITIAL CAST MAGICAL DAMAGE: 40 / 65 / 90 / 115 / 140 (+ 40% AP) MINIMUM RECAST MAGICAL DAMAGE: 40 / 65 / 90 / 115 / 140 (+ 40% AP) MINIMUM SUBSEQUENT BOLT MAGICAL DAMAGE: 8 / 13 / 18 / 23 / 28 (+ 8% AP)
Summary: Aurora fires a bolt that goes through units, marking them for 5 seconds. Recasting it returns the bolt from all targets to Aurora, hitting the target and any enemies it goes through. The damage from the recast is a VERY steeply scaling execute. Targets can be hit by several recasts at the same time, much like Xayah’s E, dealing less damage.
Usage: Waveclear and trading tool. A relatively safe and low-mana all-purpose damage tool with low cooldown. You can clear the whole wave pretty easily with this. If you happen to hit your opponent, you can choose between backing away or committing to a longer fight. She has 5 seconds to recast it, so you have an extremely long window to decide to commit or not. If you do, 5 seconds is still a lot of time to get enough damage in to get the full damage out of the execute bonus damage. Most importantly, you should only rarely be using this to get spirits for your passive. You also shouldn’t be trying to hit with as many bolts as possible. The execute damage is way more important. If you’re doing it purely to kite, though, Q > AA > Q will pop your passive instantly.
Cost: 80 mana Cooldown: 18 / 17 / 16 / 15 / 14s Cast Time: N/A Aurora hops in the target direction inside a portal to the Spirit Realm over 0.4 seconds. Upon landing she becomes invisible for a duration and enters Spirit Abjuration's Spirit Mode for 3 seconds. Scoring a takedown against an enemy champion within 3 seconds of damaging them resets Across the Veil's cooldown.
INVISIBILITY DURATION: 1.4 / 1.55 / 1.7 / 1.85 / 2 seconds
Summary: Aurora dashes a short distance (enough to clear walls) and becomes invisible, immediately entering Spirit Mode with no spirits. Takedowns within 3 seconds of damaging an enemy reset your cooldown.
Usage: A dangerous ability to have on such a high cooldown. A dash, invisibility and spirit mode proc is a very powerful escape. Probably one of the best escape abilities in the game, pretty close to Shaco’s Q. It does, however, reset on takedown, which means it’s valid to engage with. Just make sure you’ll actually be able to get the kill, or wind up with a high number of spirits, because this is also your only consistent reposition tool.
Cost: 80 mana Cooldown: 18 / 17 / 16 / 15 / 14s Cast Time: N/A
Aurora blasts energy in a line in the target direction and recoils backward. The blast deals magic damage to enemies hit and slows them by 80% decaying over 1 second.
MAGIC DAMAGE: 70 / 110 / 150 / 190 / 230 (+ 80% AP)
Summary: Aurora blasts in a line in front of her, dashing a short distance the opposite direction. Affected enemies are briefly but heavily slowed.
Usage: This is not an escape tool. This will, at best, allow you to outrun bruisers during the laning phase, or create some distance between you and your opponent. You should not be depending on this when you’re caught out of position. Mobility creep will mean that a slow for a single second will not stop a good majority of the cast during midgame or lategame fights. With that said, a small dash with no cast time can come in quite handy if you’ve got enough spirits to kite people around reliably. It also has 80% AP scaling on a line, so look for situations where you can hit the entire enemy team with it, so you can follow up with your Q. E > Q > Q will immediately grant you up to 5 spirits, giving you at the very least 30% extra movespeed for the remainder of the fight.
Cost: 100 mana Cooldown: 140 / 120 / 100s Cast Time: N/A
Aurora leaps in the target direction with displacement immunity while unleashing a pulse of energy at a set location in front of her, both over 0.5 seconds. The pulse expands in a radius from the location over the next 0.75 seconds, dealing magic damage to enemies hit and slowing them by 30% for 2 seconds. Once the pulse has fully expanded, it manifests a circular rift to the Spirit Realm for a duration.
MAGIC DAMAGE: 180 / 265 / 350 (+ 80% AP) RIFT DURATION: 3 / 3.5 / 4 seconds
While Aurora is inside the rift, she enters Spirit Abjuration's Spirit Mode for the rift's duration and empowers it with doubled healing and movement speed.
Aurora and enemies within the rift are trapped inside. If Aurora touches the border, she dashes to the diametrically opposite side of the rift over 0.4 seconds, becoming untargetable and unable to act during the travel. If an enemy champion or pet touches the border, they are knocked back 75 units and slowed by 75% for 1.5 seconds. Minions that touch the border are executed.
Between Worlds can be recast after 1 second of unleashing the pulse.
On recast, Aurora closes the rift prematurely.
Summary: Aurora leaps a short distance, slowing and dealing magic damage in an area and setting down a boundary in the area. While inside her ultimate, Aurora procs Spirit Mode and doubles its effects. Walking towards the end of the rift blinks her to the opposite side. Enemies that touch the border get knocked back and slowed. In the case that they’re inside the rift, they’re knocked back to the center. Minions that cross the rift are executed. Recasting cancels her ultimate.
Usage: This ability has pretty much boundless room (haha, see what I did there?) for creativity. The most obvious use is using it to force unfavorable fights for the opponent, much like Camille likes to use her ultimate. Camille, however, gets extra damage when ulting, and you don’t. She’s also a bruiser that utilizes this kind of ultimate in completely different ways at times, so treating this like a Camille ult will often lead you to get burst down immediately. Moreover, this is a skillshot, rather than a targeted ability. There’s also a reasonably large delay for the rift to form, so people can indeed blink out (or in!) of it if they see you using it haphazardly. If you’re using it to lock down a squishy target, make sure to E first, aim where they’re going, or use up their escape beforehand.
A trick to keep in mind is that there’s no limit to how much you can hop. Something sneaky you can do is ult the whole enemy team, slip an E > Q and then immediately dash with W into one of the walls, and keep walking from one side to the other to keep yourself untargetable. This way, you’re able to apply 2 stacks of your passive onto various enemies, and you’ve got your Q recast handy, while you keep yourself untargetable for the duration. If your team’s able to capitulate on it, you can recast your Q execute, getting your third stack on all enemies. Anybody who survived that will have a very angry bunny running after them with 4-6 spirits stacked up.
You can also use this ability to protect yourself from towerdives. Ulting towards your tower will keep anybody from entering the tower’s range, and execute the minions crashing into your tower. You also immediately get spirit mode to run away with W after.
Aurora will launch with the new Swarm gamemode, and will be part of the Anima Squad skins, with her first skin being Anima Squad Aurora.
Finally, to recap, it’s pretty clear she will be a pretty reliable pick for both toplane and midlane. Her Spirit Mode allows her to outrun fighters and punish tanks in lane. However, she also has very good waveclear, a safe escape and alright mobility, so she’s also a valid midlane pick, although she might run into some issues if facing assassins. Keep in mind Ignite also grants true sight, so she’s not safe from something like a Zed or Talon level 6 all-in.
If you’re eager to test out Aurora’s potential across multiple roles, consider starting fresh with a Level 30+ unranked League of Legends account. These accounts let you experiment without affecting your main rank, offering a clean slate to master her unique playstyle.
There’s also a case to be made for her being viable in the bottom lane as an AP carry, much like Seraphine. Good waveclear, low mana costs and high scalings allow her to go toe to toe against most ADCs in the early game, but later on in the game, she won’t be able to match the DPS of other champions in the role. It is still viable pick if you have consistent DPS for fights later on.
As a support, her abilities constantly have her hit the wave on their way to the target. Zaz’Zak’s Dreamspike and Imperial Mandate are not bad options. In fact, Imperial Mandate sounds like a pretty sweet option for teamfighting, given that she can apply it to the whole enemy team pretty easily and several times during one fight, but she benefits very little from the rest of the AP support items. She doesn’t necessarily want a lot of ability haste, either. She’d overall make for a pretty subpar support.
Her passive doesn’t gain spirits from jungle monsters, so it’s unlikely she’d see much success in the jungle. Even with stealth, her Q and E aren’t enough to slow down someone who isn’t already committed to a fight, and she’s very likely to lose most early skirmishes with junglers that have the tools to chase her down.
Of course, it remains to be seen if any crazy strategies item interactions will be discovered, if she’s buffed or nerfed, or even outright changed, or more. It seems that her identity lines up with a slippery battlemage that focuses on kiting, though, and she’s unlikely to leave that niche out of virtue of her design.
