Zeri primed for League of Legends Season 13 buffs as win rate toes 40%

❘ Published: 2022-11-17T05:45:00

Riot Games

Zeri proved to be one of League of Legends’ most controversial releases. Already having faced more than a dozen changes since her early Season 12 launch, Riot are kickstarting the Spark of Zaun again as her win rate continues to plummet towards 40%.

When Zeri rushed onto the scene at the start of League of Legends Season 12, no one could have predicted how problematic she would become. The Spark of Zaun became bot lane’s version of Ryze ⁠— a tough nut to crack, but masters could easily 1v9 with her.

Her high damage, insane movement, and seemingly infinite scaling made her impossible to stop once she got going. The only way to do that was, well, wait for the Riot nerf hammer to come down.

It slammed down hard on Zeri time and time again, with the Spark of Zaun facing more than a dozen changes in less than a year. However one final set of nerfs put her in the bin for the latter half of Season 12.

Her win rate has continued to slide lower and lower, slowly approaching 40% as Season 13 came along. With preseason now out the door though, Riot has more time to focus on individual champion adjustments, and Zeri is top of the list.

The Spark of Zaun is getting a complete overhaul in LoL patch 12.23: “Zeri with 900 range, an infinite ult, and high damage had almost zero weaknesses in coordinated play,” developer ‘TheTruexy’ said.

“[We are] making her be in threat range more and commit her E to have her zippy payoffs and carry moments.”

Riot are bringing Zeri back to life with much-needed buffs in League of Legends Season 13.

The changes are extensive. Across the board, her damage and tankiness is going up. However she will be much more vulnerable by nature of being shorter range, with nearly 100 units of it being taken out of her primary damage tool in Burst Fire.

Certain niche builds are being taken out of consideration: AP Zeri being hampered with changes to her W, Ultrashock Laser, removing any scaling. There’s a bigger focus on crit builds too, rather than the bruiser-style Zeri that dominated most of the year.

Her high skill expression will remain. With her range being cut, players will have to be masters of movement to get the most out of Zeri. Her E, Spark Surge, will have a reduced cooldown as a result, as well as a steroid giving bonus magic damage and crit damage to her Q after dashing.

You can find the full list of Zeri changes in LoL patch 12.23 below, before they go live in early December.

Zeri changes in LoL patch 12.23

Base stats

Move speed: 325 ⇒ 330
Attack damage: 50 ⇒ 53
Armor: 20 ⇒ 24
Health: 600 ⇒ 630
Attack speed: 0.568 ⇒ 0.625
Health per level: 109 ⇒ 115

Passive: Living Battery

Gotta Zip shield bonus: 10% multiplicative move speed ⇒ 10% move speed
Duration: 3 seconds ⇒ 2 seconds

Q: Burst Fire

Fully charged right-click damage: 90-200 (+90% AP)(+1-15% target max health) ⇒ 90-200 (+110% AP)(+1-15% target max health)
Range: 825 ⇒ 750
Excess attack speed to attack damage ratio: 60% ⇒ 70%
Base damage: 8/11/14/17/20 ⇒ 15/18/21/24/27
Attack damage ratio: 100/105/110/115/120% ⇒ 104/108/112/116/120%

W: Ultrashock Laser

Damage type: Magic ⇒ Physical
Damage: 20/55/90/125/160 (+100% AD)(+40% AP) ⇒ 20/60/100/140/180 (+130% AD)
Cast time: 2.5x attack time ⇒ 0.55-0.3 seconds (based on attack speed)
Missile speed: 2200 ⇒ 2500
Beam cast time: 0.75 seconds ⇒ 0.85 seconds

E: Spark Surge

Mana: 80 ⇒ 90/85/80/75/70
Cooldown: 24/22.5/21/19.5/18 seconds ⇒ 22/21/20/19/18 seconds
[NEW] For 5 seconds, Zeri’s Burst Fire does additional magic damage to the first enemy hit and pierces targets
- Bonus magic damage: 20/22/24/26/28 (+20% AP)(+12% bAD)
[NEW] Now deals up to 65% bonus damage based on critical strike chance
Pierce damage falloff: 60/70/80/90/100% ⇒ 80/85/90/95/100%
Ability and attack damage reduces the cooldown of Spark Surge by 0.5 seconds (1.5 seconds for critical strikes)
Reveal range through walls: 850 ⇒ 1500

R: Lightning Crash

[REMOVED] Bonus magic damage
Chain Lightning range: 450 ⇒ 650
On-cast magic damage: 150/250/350 (+80% AP)(+80% bAD) ⇒ 175/275/375 (+110% AP)(+100% bAD)
If Lightning Crash hits at least one champion, Zeri gains 10% move speed, 30% attack speed, and chain shots for 5 seconds. Hitting champions refreshes this buff by 1.5 seconds, up to 5 seconds total.
Hitting champions grants Zeri 1 stack (3 per critical strike) of Overcharge for 1.5 seconds. Zeri gains 0.5% move speed for each stack of Overcharge, stacking infinitely.