Zeri is already getting nerfed in patch 12.3

League of Legends’ newest champion, Zeri, the Spark of Zaun, is already getting nerfed in the next patch.

Zeri debuted to abysmal win rates, but quickly began to move upwards as players began to pin down her unusual build. After branching out into Runaan’s Hurricane, Zeri began to show off some pretty shocking damage.

Zeri nerfed in patch 12.3

The preview of the next patch for League of Legends’ live server was posted to Twitter by designer Riot Phlox. The key interaction being taken away from Zeri is the strength of her ultimate’s interaction with Runaan’s Hurrican. On a champion who can miss their auto-attack equivalent, the guaranteed damage from Runaan’s is already useful.

Upon release, each bolt of Runaan’s Hurricane procced the chain lightning from Zeri’s ultimate as well as putting more damage onto the primary target.

12.3 with content! -Pyke +Akshan +Brand

There'll be a QGT on this later in the week, but the short of the fighter changes is that we're aiming to shift light fighters toward lower-durability itemization. We'll be watching the fallout closely, it's 100% a disruptive change.

1/3 pic.twitter.com/IaPXkpW5Ks

— Phlox (@RiotPhlox) January 25, 2022

That level of free damage for a champion whose entire kit is centered around having to repeatedly hit a skillshot meant Zeri was capable of dumping damage into enemy teams while staying safe. She might still be able to stand toe to toe with the best marksman champions, but it’ll demand a bit more skill from Zeri players.

Fighter system rework changes the game

The other big note from this patch is a substantial rework of the fighter class of champions. Short-range carries who thrive on extended fights and punishing opponents’ positioning have had a problematic place in the game for a while.

Overall, Riot feels like fighters have been too easily able to threaten enemies without putting themselves at risk and play too similarly to juggernauts.

These system changes hope to better differentiate the classes by focusing fighters’ nimble and flexible offensive utility, while juggernauts should feel like walking balls of stats bringing death to anyone who gets too close for too long. Riot will be carefully monitoring these changes as the patch makes its way to live servers.

In many ways this seems to be part of Riot’s attempt to address healing in the game by removing defensive stats from a lot of key items.