“The Spark of Zaun” is having so high winning rate that Riot is working on her nerfs
Since her first being published in patch 12.2, Zeri has become a popular choice for the carry slot due to her high mobility and a considerable amount of AOE damage. Additionally, with Bruisers’ build, she becomes tougher than any other marksmen.
Zeri has appeared in almost every single match in pro leagues recently. Riot obviously figured out her OP power, so they decided to “help” her to return to land. They used 2 patches (12.3 and 12.4) to adjust her, but that seemed relatively useless. As a result, Riot August – Zeri’s creator, said that his “daughter” honestly needed another nerf and he posted it on his Twitter yesterday.
On his private Twitter, August shared with the community that the aim of the upcoming nerf was to hammer her AOE damage and mobility. Besides, a marksman with bruisers’ build sounded quite awkward, so they wanted her to return to traditional marksmen’s build.
In the next patch, Zeri’s base stats will be substantially decreased, from base HP to base Armor. Her poke damage from E goes down a bit and this skill’s CD remains unchanged at every level. Additional MS from R at first levels will also fall a bit. This nerf is enabling Zeri’s opponents to have more chances to slay her in the early and mid-game, whereas her power in the late is not heavily affected.
These changes are being tracked on the PBE server and are planned to be available on live servers in patch 12.6, coming out with “new” Rengar.