Everything You Need to Know About Locke, the Ashen Exorcist's Abilities — Overview

The first champion of League of Legends 2026 (yes, really) has officially launched. With the latest being Zaahen, the Unsundered, it's been a little over six months since we've had a new champion join the roster.

We've been looking forward to Locke, the Ashen Exorcist, arriving for a while. With 2026 Season 1: For Demacia focused on Shyvana's rework, we didn't get to learn a whole lot about the upcoming champion that would launch.

Now, we have all of the information we need about him as a champion, as his release nears. Here's what you need to know about Locke!

What Role is Locke, the Ashen Exorcist?

Unfortunately, for everyone who has been hoping for a new support champion, Locke won't be filling that desire. The last support champion to release in League of Legends was Milio, who launched on the 22nd of March 2023 (an age and a half ago).

Instead, Locke will be joining the ever-expanding list of mid-lane characters for players to enjoy. He's a melee AP mage who specialises in assassination with an execute (more on that later).

Here's what you need to know about his abilities.

Silver Stake

Passive

Locke's passive is an auto-attack enhancement ability which deals magic damage based on level, AP, and the target's missing health. Here's how the math is broken down for the number nerds who want to crunch everything.

His damage scales around 2.06 based on his level: 5 / 7.08 / 9.12 / 11.18 / 13.24 / 15.29 / 17.35 / 19.41 / 21.47 / 23.53 / 25.59 / 27.65 / 29.71 / 31.76 / 33.82 / 35.88 / 37.94 / 40. 40 is the maximum for most players (those playing Locke in the mid lane), but his damage can also grow in the top lane because of the Role Quest, going up to 42.06 and 44.12 for levels 19 and 20, respectively.

This is accompanied by a +10% AP bonus (meaning that at 100 AP, Locke deals an extra 10 magic damage on his passive).

The damage is increased based on the target's missing health at specific intervals. Starting at 0%, for every 5% lower health that the target has, Locke's passive deals 7.14% higher damage. Here's the raw numbers: 0% / 5% / 10% / 15% / 20% / 25% / 30% / 35% / 40% / 45% / 50% / 55% / 60% / 65% / 70%, and they incrase the damage by the following: 0% / 7.14% / 14.29% / 21.43% / 28.57% / 35.71% / 42.86% / 50% / 57.14% / 64.29% / 71.43% / 78.57% / 85.71% / 92.86% / 100%

This means that, at maximum strength (when the target is at or below 70% HP), the passive deals up to double damage. Meaning that the numbers of the first bit, scaling with HP, are increased to 10 / 14.12 / 18.24 / 22.35 / 26.47 / 30.59 / 34.71 / 38.82 / 42.94 / 47.06 / 51.18 / 59.41 / 63.53 / 67.65 / 71.76 / 75.88 / 80. That's up to level 18, and for top laners who complete the Role Quest, the levels 19 and 20 damage are 84.12 and 88.24, respectively.

The scaling damage also applies to the %AP damage, meaning that it can go up to +20% AP (meaning that at 100 AP, the passive will deal 20 damage).

Ritual Nails

Q

Locke's signature ability, his Ritual Nails, is a three-cast skill shot ability that has players targeting foes. It's a long-range attack that applies a slow and a stack of Soul Nails for four seconds, refreshing the timer for each of the three casts that the player does subsequently on a target, up to three times.

The slow effect scales based on the amount of stacks of Soul Nails the target champion has. If the foe has two stacks, the third one will apply a slow of 60% for two seconds (instead of 25% for one second as the other two).

Locke can recast the ability within five seconds at no additional cost (meaning that all three cats of Ritual Nails only costs 70 mana total), though for each cast not used by the five-second window, Ritual Nails gets a partial refund for both cooldown (20%–35% based on level) and mana (40%–70% based on level), maxing out at the respective numbers.

Finally, when Locke deals damage through a basic attack or Ashen Pursuit (his E, more on that later), he'll consume all of the Soul Nails stacks to deal bonus magic damage for each stack.

The damage is increased by 20% and 40% at two and three nails, respectively. Here's a look at the damage numbers for Ritual Nails:

• Magic Damage Per Nail is 50 / 60 / 70 / 80 / 90 (+20% AP). This can happen up to three times as per the recasts, so it can deal up to 150 / 180 / 210 / 240 / 270 (+60% AP) if all three nails are landed.
• The bonus magic damage per stack is 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 / 60 (+ 25% / 27.5% / 30% / 32.5% / 35% AP) per stack of Soul Nails that the target has by the time Locke deals damage via a basic attack or Ashen Pursuit. Bear in mind that the damage is increased by 20% and 40%, so it's not a flat increase at full stacks of Soul Nails.

This ability has a 70 mana cost, a cooldown that scales per level on Ritual Nails (10 / 9 / 8 / 7 / 6), a 0.5-second static cooldown between casts of Ritual Nail, and a target range of 950.

Soul Ignition

W

His W is one of Locke's main movement abilities, alongside also being a survival one that'll keep him safe. Soul Ignition costs 0.5% of current health per 0.25 seconds of activation to cast, meaning that it can cost a total of 12% of current health if run for its full six-second duration.

While active, Locke gains 40%–73.53% (based on level) attack speed and bonus movement speed for the duration. The latter decays over one second to 20% after 1.5 seconds have elapsed after Soul Ignition was activated.

During its six-second duration, Locke stores 100% of post-mitigation damage he takes from enemy champions, alongside the damage he takes from the health cost to activate the skill. This is stored as grey health to a maximum cap of 250–630 (based on level) (40% AP) based on his missing health and Soul Ignition's duration.

Once re-activated (or the duration ends), Locke regains all of the grey health lost, healing for the same amount. He can cast this ability even while being affected by crowd control, though it's worth noting that the grey health heal will be affected by grievous wounds afterwards.

The movement speed increases by 50 / 55 / 60 / 65 / 70% (+ 2% per 100 AP) per level. Soul Ignition has a 20 / 18 / 16 / 14 / 12 second cooldown, based on its level, with a 50 mana cost.

Ashen Pursuit

E

His E - Ashen Pursuit is one of Locke's main abilities, as it's one of the ways that he'll be triggering the damage he can deal from the Soul Nail stacks we were talking about during the Ritual Nail section. His E costs 30 mana to cast, and he blinks a short distance (375 range, or just under the length of a Flash), enabling a 275 bonus range auto attack that'll dash to a target location.

The ability deals damage upon blink (40 / 50 / 60 / 70 / 80 (+40% AP)) to nearby enemies upon arrival, alongside the dash magic damage (40 / 60 / 80 / 100 / 120 (+40% AP)) to every target he passes through and the primary target of his dash. The champion being targeted by the dash also takes on-hit effects.

This will be one of his key gameplay elements, as Locke's Soul Nail stacks will trigger alongside his Ashen Pursuit Dash Magic Damage, which means that his main burst will come from landing all three ritual nails and then blinking + dashing to the foe for a lot of damage. That's how his combo will essentially work, centring around his ability to land a major chunk of the ritual nails to accrue Soul Nail stacks.

The ability has a 10-second cooldown flat across all levels, but it does have a reset based on champion takedowns. This means that, with proper targeting, Locke can activate Ashen Pursuit several times, either to continue chaining kills or as an escape.

Purgatory

R

Finally, Locke's ultimate is called Purgatory. Upon activation, he throws an artefact to the target location, where a totem rises and fires latching nails onto enemies around it. Targets hit take magic damage (150 / 225 / 300 (+60% AP)) and get slowed by 99% decaying over two seconds, and champions hit are marked for five seconds.

Those who were marked can be executed if their HP is reduced past a specific threshold (10% / 11% / 12% (+ 0.5% per Sealed Champion stack)) of their maximum HP. This allows Locke to take down foes even if they leave the Purgatory area.

Once a target has been executed, their soul will be sealed within the totem at the location where it was cast. This can be picked up by Locke, which will refund 20% of the current cooldown for Purgatory, alongside giving him one stack of Sealed Champion, which increases the execute threshold by 0.5% per stack.

This means that Locke can scale very well into the late game, as each target that he executes with Purgatory will leave a stack, meaning that — upon acquiring a Pentakill with Purgatory — Locke can increase the execute threshold for a maximum of 2.5% per cast. The ability also has a relatively short cooldown, 120 / 100 / 80, which Locke can reduce by picking up the totem.

That said, Locke has to survive until after the fight in order to gather the totem. It'll stay in its location until Purgatory is off cooldown (or a minimum of 60 seconds if ability haste brings the cooldown below that threshold).

Meaning that the totem will stay a maximum of 120 seconds (based on the first level) on the ground where Locke threw it. If Locke fails to pick up the totem, he loses out on the Sealed Champion stack and the cooldown refund.

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Locke will be released in Patch 26.13 on the 24th of June 2026.