The FAILED Champion Riot Regrets... What Can Be Done About Zeri?

Today, let's talk about an iconic League of Legends champion... Zeri. With all the new changes for Preseason / Season 2023, Zeri is receiving another set of changes and rework. She has been featured in the patch notes for league a million times, so what is so wrong with her? Let's compare zeri, one of the most broken and overpowered champions in league of legends, to one of the best designed ones... Lillia -- This video was written, produced, edited, and voiced by Kellen (Exil)

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Caedrel league of legends : Zeri is unbalanceable

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[NickyBoi]

3:50 Funny thing is, it's actually the opposite of what happened. Both Zeri and Renatta were supposed to release in 2021 but were delayed ON PURPOSE because Riot thought it ill advised to release 2 Piltover/Zaunite champions during Arcane that had absolutely nothing to do with Arcane

[yorthundir]

One thing to note is, while Lillia may not have had a ton of big changes directly, Riot did fundamentally change the jungle in order to nerf her. If I remember correctly, they changed the monster patience mechanic because she was clearing two camps at a time and steamrolling through the jungle faster than anyone else could dream of.

[Gottmode]

I love how they admit that this champ is beyond broken and they can’t fix her but yuumi is still in the game 😅

[WilliamAndrews]

I think a huge problem that you haven't touched on was that she was basically slightly stronger than any other ADC, but at a time when yuumi was also incredibly OP. Seeing how these 2 were usually played together, especially in pro-play, that made her absolutely broken. With yuumi giving her even more movement speed, an aoe CC and a decent heal, she could just skip buying any Utility or survivability items. This allowed her to just rush the highest possible damage items without having any problems with survivability. Her "weakpoint" of having lower damage than other adcs was completely negated by that.

[BrendanGeormer]

For the intro, when it comes to Akali, it is good that they whack-a-mole'd a bunch of things that were problematic in her kit, but the fact it took them so long before they were willing, and that they thought having all those crazy features was okay to begin with was what sticks with me.

[ahmadbugshan]

best part about zeri
is that she got so much changes it shows riot dont want to give up
they gave up on so many characters really fast but zeri they are trying and trying to get her right and i love that one day they will get it right but who knows when that would happen

[Theheadgiver]

Lillia change to melee is such a buff, now demonic does so much more damage making her burns so op

[scheve]

What you said about removing some of her excess mechanics is how I feel about Zeri. Her W and E just don't really *need* to have terrain interaction, while thematically speaking it doesn't say that much about the champion anyway. Her W seems the most egregious of all in that it's just... Really random? Yet for whatever reason she was balanced in a way that her W became the focal point of her gameplay, at least for a short while.

In a perfect world I think Zeri is designed around her Q more so than anything else, I would argue that her W and E should be complements to her Q at best. If you're always managing your positioning then the standard W is already a worthwhile ability for its slow, and honestly is already quite powerful without being turned into a Lux ult. If her dash was less instrumental to her kit she could also niche out much more as a movement speed hypercarry, rather than becoming a strangely overtuned Ezreal. Their gameplay loops are quite similar, dash, Q reset, dash, etc.

To me it seems a bit lazy as Zeri could've easily been designed to have 0 dashes, with more emphasis being placed on rewarding good positioning. Designing champs around dashes has become a no-brainer crutch in my opinion. She could be throwing down tesla coils for her E for all I care, which could be turned into a zoning threat to aid her positioning, or could lead to rewarding skill expression when used in tandem with her ult to build more stacks of her movement speed. It makes me a bit sad that she gets Lucian's/Ezreal's E instead, when those champions seem to be designed to use those abilities more thoughtfully—especially Lucian, who naturally promotes some of the smoothest adc gameplay out there.

[MegaAlphaDog]

I am praying that this midscope update brings her back into the playable category. I love her kit and really would accept any change to make her actually useful again

[SS-whuo]

A blind man could have seen this coming with Zeri. Hyper mobility has no place in a Moba, as soon as you start down that rabit hole, its almost impossible to climb back out of it.

[lolialf]

feel like Lillia's kit was made for her passive unlike most modern champions, and everything just flows afterward

[alexhaupt]

Funny thing I saw was missing: Akali's Q used to deal bonus damage to minions at rank 5! The purpose of this was so she could still function as a split pusher "without having too much pushing power during landing phase", as that was her usual pattern pre-rework

[raistlinmajere]

I think we should wait to see how her mid scope works. It seems good trying to build her as an adc and limiting her basic auto attack range and mobility in exchange to enhance the rest of the kit.

[legobobafett]

13:48 this is because lilia ult proc is a projectile, travelling to the enemy champion, similar to sylas ult when he throws his chain at you. Samira can block said projectile, prevent the effect.

[Lincy]

Yuumi was also a huge part of why Zeri was very strong

[Verlisify]

What was crazy to me about modern design is that Samira needed EVERYTHING nerfed in a Patch, including passive, for the first time ever. Then Riot went "hold my gragas barrel" with Zeri

[soybi]

For me, Jhin is the best-designed champion. It's been several years since his release but he is still so much fun and rewarding to play.

[lol-gameplay]

The Windwall deleting Lillias Ult is simply because the Ult starts with Lillia throwing some small projectile towards the champions affected by her passive. As it is a projectile, the windwall and Samira W can delete it. In the clip you have shown Samira was on top of Lillia, meaning that her W was able to delete all the Ult seeds Lillia threw out.

[VaggelisIosifidis]

9:23 I like that, when you say "No champion has ever had these significant adjustments..." Azir feels offended and hops away 😂

[lukedavis]

Jhin has been changed in 42 patches over his release in season 6. That is seven patch changes a year. While Lillia has had 16 patch changes since her release. So 8 a year. And Zeri has 39 changes in one year.