As Riot struggles to balance League of Legends‘ feisty little feline Yuumi, the dev has revealed it may have to make “tough decisions” if the MOBA‘s divisive support doesn’t land correctly after yet another round of changes. What that means remains a mystery, but it looks like her League of Legends dominance may be drawing to an anti-climatic close.
This comes in the wake of the cat’s return to the pro scene after being removed from play at MSI 2023, and even more nerfs in League of Legends patch 13.12 that target her Q and E shields.
In a June 13 tweet, lead designer on the League of Legends balance team, Matt ‘Phroxzon’ Leung-Harrison notes that the team is “not happy” with the state of Yuumi and fellow botlaner Zeri in pro play.
“Both champs benefited from [patch] 13.10, 11. Zeri is too strong and tanky on Tri Force spike, and Yuumi has strong synergy with [Echoes of] Helia. We’re optimistic about their future and mechanics, but think sub 50% [win rate] is a better spot for them to sit long term and are open to more drastic changes if that doesn’t work.”
The sentiment in the tweet is echoed in a lengthy Reddit post, where Leung-Harrison addresses the state of Yuumi directly. Yuumi dominates at lower levels, but is simultaneously deemed one of the best LoL champions for beginners due to both her mechanical simplicity, and the fact that her attach mechanics remove the need to position correctly. At the moment, Riot has struggled to strike the balance between complete domination, while maintaining her new player friendliness.
“It may turn out that she can’t even live sub-50 without causing problems, in which case, we have some tough decisions to make,” Leung-Harrison states, and that’s slightly scary news for Yuumi players.
While I doubt Riot will ever remove Yuumi from the game (Fs in the chat), we may see her reworked entirely, with the attach mechanics potentially getting removed. While it’s a core part of her kit, it’s easily the ability that’s causing the most issues, and I can’t really see a way to fix it. I can only think of making it a little more akin to Rakan’s Battle Dance (E), but then she just has the same mechanics as the Vastayan troublemaker, making her a bit redundant.
Either way, and for better or worse, Yuumi remains at the top of the LoL tier list for now, so you’d better get used to hearing “THIS IS MY FAVORITE CHAPTER” over, and over, and over again.