Riot Games to release major nerfs for League of Legends champion Zeri in Patch 12.6
Riot Games is set to bring major nerfs for League of Legends champion Zeri, the Spark of Zaun with Patch 12.6, scheduled to arrive on March 30 following the champion’s higher win rate in both competitive and standard matchmaking.
League’s lead champion designer with a username @RiotAugust tweeted about the upcoming major nerfs of the champion’s abilities and gameplay, adding the champion’s win rate is “scary” and confirming that the team is working to make her “fairer”.
August has laid out three main goals the team aims to work on the champion he dubbed as “Zeri the carry”, such as lowering overall damage and mobility, shifting damage of base AD, and lowering Zeri’s passive shield and HP purchases to make it “worse”.
Zeri’s problem, stats
Zeri is the 158th champion for League and the first released to the game this year. The champion has caused tremendous problems in the game’s balancing system on both competitive and standard play.
The champion recorded high win rate jumps from 51% in Silver to near 54% in ELO. Reportedly Riot is having rough times in balancing Zeri’s kit in January and the champion has been into back-to-back updates, fixing her damage and movement speed. But to no avail Riot will have to give it another try, making it the fourth time balancing Zeri.
Zeri’s ban rate is quite high, on all ranks the champion has a 36.85% rate and goes up to 62% as players approach higher ELO. In diamond+ Zeri has a 52.82%, and the champion is one of the best players’ main arsenal.
One of Zeri’s builds, namely the bruiser Trinity Force is one of the overpowered builds considered by players and quite troublesome to deal with progressing further to the later stages of the game. With this in mind, Riot will be looking to work on toning down the champion’s kit.
Riot’s plan
More about Riot’s plan to nerf Zeri, as mentioned by August previously there are three goals Riot wanted to do with the Spark of Zaun troublesome champion.
The nerf aims on all parts of Zeri’s kit. Riot planned to increase the champion’s Q base damage at the expense of lower base AD and decreased right-click scalings. Further, Zeri will be more vulnerable with less armor and HP, but Riot complimented the nerf by improving her HP scaling.
Zeri’s E cooldown has been increased to 23 seconds, reducing the champion’s constant dash and fighting ability. In other words, poor late-game effectiveness. Riot planned to make Zeri slightly worse in the early game, but only her passthrough damage that will hurt the champion when fighting around minions.
Lastly, another early game nerf is less movement speed per stack on her ultimate, making her will not be able to zoom around from level 6.
Complimenting the Zeri nerf coming with Patch 12.6 is the launch of slight rework on Rengar and Lifesteal changes which will affect Zeri alongside some of the League’s champions.
But worry not, Riot’s Lifesteal changes will hurt League’s majority of the AD carries champions, making the game on competitive and standard fairer.
