Riot Games has now unveiled the full rundown of new League of Legends champion Zeri’s abilities. Known as The Spark of Zaun, Zeri’s a marksman champ all about “electric magic”, which she uses to charge both herself and the gun she crafted from scratch, and a “lightning-fast approach to life”, as per her short bio. We’ve seen her backstory and a champion trailer emerge this week, giving us a flavour of how she’ll play, but now we can put all that into context with a good look at her ability kit.
Zeri’s Passive is Living Battery, which grants her move speed whenever she receives a shield. Damaging an enemy shield will let her absorb its energy, which then shields her. Her Q, Burst Fire, meanwhile, has passive and active elements.
The former has her basic damage deal magic damage, it scales with ability power (AP), and is treated as an ability. “Moving and casting Burst Fire stores up energy in Zeri’s Sparkpack,” the ability explainer says. “When fully charged, her next basic attack will slow and deal bonus damage.” The active element of her Q shoots a burst of seven rounds that dish out physical damage to the first enemy they hit. Burst Fire scales with attack damage (AD) and is treated as an attack, with the first round shot applying on-hit effects. The cooldown for this is the same as the champ’s basic attack timer.
Zeri’s W is Ultrashock Laser. With this, Zeri fires off an electric pulse that applies damage and slowing to the first enemy it strikes, though if it hits a wall instead, it’ll fire off a long-range laser from the point at which it struck. So, it sounds like she’s got options if she’s keen to pivot attacks around to enemies a little further away.
Spark Surge, Zeri’s E, hinges on that “lightning-fast” approach we’ve heard about. She’ll dash a short distance and energises her next three Burst Fire casts, which gives them the ability to pierce through foes. Zeri will “vault over or grind along any terrain she dashes into, depending on the angle”, and she’ll reduce E’s cooldown if she hits a champion with an ability or attack.
Finally, Zeri’s Ultimate (R) is Lightning Crash. With this, she “discharges a nova of electricity”, which deals damage to nearby enemies and overcharges her for a “moderate duration”. While she’s in this overcharged state, Zeri gains increased damage, attack speed, and move speed. She refreshes the duration of her overcharged status and gets an additional stack of move speed if she attacks enemy champions. Also while overcharged, the damage from Burst Fire (Q) “concentrates into a faster triple shot that chains lightning between enemies”. Sizzling.
While we’ve already seen Zeri’s classic splash art and her champion reveal video, Riot has now unveiled her special launch skin, which is Withered Rose Zeri. This comes alongside a Withered Rose skin for Diana in the next patch (plus a whole bunch of other new Crystal Rose, Porcelain, and Firecracker skins for various lucky champs).
While we don’t yet have the details of the exact stats, costs, durations, and such on these abilities, we typically see new champions hit the PBE very shortly after Riot unveils them, so expect these details to make it into our League of Legends patch 12.2 notes very soon. We’ll be sure to put everything you need to know in those when Zeri comes to the testing grounds ready for her live debut with patch 12.2.