Following poor performance caused by changes received in League of Legends patch 12.7, Zeri received a major update in the form of a hot fix. The champion had been ranked as one of the worst in the game’s history, unable to achieve even a 44% win rate — no matter the level of the players. An alarming situation that the studio will try to stem by slightly increasing the stats of his skills, but without changing his new identity, which is more focused on critical hits than on combat objects.
New Changes to Zeri
Zeri has become one of the hardest champions to balance in Riot Games history. Its debut in Summoner’s Rift was disappointing due to its unique playstyle, but it began to dominate the bot lane as players learned to play it. Its performance has been too outstanding and its mechanics too frustrating for the community. As such, it has accumulated seven changes since its release in patch 12.2 (more than one per patch). Major transformations that were somewhat disappointing for players who appreciate the champion.
In the emergency patch deployed by Riot Games on April 15, 2022, the following changes were introduced:
One more time, these are large-scale changes that aim to turn the tide of champion. Riot Games has been overly aggressive due to Zeri’s high number of bans in ranked play, but especially his presence in the competitive League of Legends circuit. Professional gamers haven’t stopped using it, and with MSI 2022 fast approaching, the studio wanted to make sure it wouldn’t dominate the competitive meta during the tournament. This situation also led to a controversial nerf to Ryze, which ended up in a state equivalent or even worse than the ADC.
It remains to be seen if these are the last major changes for a while, or if Riot Games will still be forced to act in the coming weeks. She’s certainly one of the most interesting and unique champions in League of Legends, but her mechanics have cost Riot Games a lot of flak.