Released in 12.2, Zeri had been a constant presence (and nuisance) in pub and especially in pro play.
During her first year of release, Zeri was changed 11 times between Patch 12.2 and 13.2
For comparison here are the top 5 champions who got the most adjustments:
Changes in first year | Champions |
---|---|
16 | Sylas |
14 | Aatrox (rework) |
11 | Aphelios, Ezreal (release), Ornn, Yuumi, Zeri |
10 | Kai’sa, Tahm Kench |
9 (honorable mentions) | Akali, Galio, Maokai (rework 1), Sejuani (rework 2) |
Reddit users seem to share the sentiment that the balance team is not fully at fault here, it’s Riot’s champion design team. They have been churning out champions with broken mechanics that are balance nightmares and require multiple reworks. The balance team is really working overtime at this point.
Zeri’s passive allows her to gain damage just by moving and spamming Q, which you’d want to all the time anyways. She can sidestep skillshots and avoid harassment while charging up for a counterattack, making her trades super efficient, and her kit scales AoE and single target damage to ridiculous levels, and fits the current itemization in League to a T.
It’s understandable why Riot’s design team would try to make overpowered champions with busted mechanics – it’s fun and incentivizes players to try them out. But the fun expires after a few weeks when you start seeing the same broken champions every game, and having to play against ‘fun’ broken champions is very very unfun.
There is no easy solution. Riot recently reworked Yuumi and it did absolutely nothing – the champions was picked or banned in 98% of LCK games! Removing a champion’s distinctive mechanics makes them, well, not distinctive. Bland. Nerfing it too much without addressing its unbalanced mechanics makes the champion shit in pub, but still broken in pro play.
Eventually they will hit a good balance point with Zeri, but at this point it feels like the player base is being fed something bad from Riot and has to suffer slowly until it is out of our system and the stomachache is gone!
LEAKS: 10 new champions to receive Soul Fighter skins