Riot recently shared some information about the direction of the upcoming Yuumi rework.
Yuumi, The Magical Cat, introduced in 2019, is undoubtedly one of Riot’s most controversial champions to date. Since her debut in the Rift, the cat has been a balance nightmare for Riot.
During her initial release, she was thought to be one of the worst champions in the game. But after some minor buffs and testing, players figured out how broken she was. Since then, Yuumi has remained the premier support in almost every meta. Riot tried to balance her multiple time, but she either became utterly useless or very overpowered; there was no in-between.
The reason for this balance nightmare is her kit, specifically her W ability, You and Me! The ability allows her to attach to an ally, provide stat boosts, and heal them while remaining untargetable. This is a frustrating ability with almost no counterplay other than punishing the Yuumi player’s mistakes. Additionally, if Yuumi attaches to a fed champion, the champion becomes neigh unkillable.
That being said, Riot tried multiple times to balance her kit by giving her more incentive to detach from her allies, but ultimately it was futile. So, in December 2022, Riot finally announced they would rework Yuumi.
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Recent Yuumi Nerfs
One of the things Riot announced during the rework dev blog was that they would be nerfing Yuumi considerably in preparation for the rework.
Thus, on patch 13.1, Riot nerfed her. They nerfed her Q – Prowling Projectile base damage and the empowered damage. This led to her Q max build falling off considerably but her healing build was untouched.
In typical Yuumi fashion, she still remained one of the strongest supports in the game. So, Riot, on patch 13.1B again nerfed her. They nerfed her base stats, passive, W – You and Me! damage and E – Zoomies movement speed.
Direction For the Yuumi Rework
The December Dev Blog Riot explained why Riot was reworking Yuumi, but they didn’t elaborate on what changes her rework would bring or what direction it would take.
But recently, on a Twitter post, Riot Phroxzon elaborated on some details about her rework.
Firstly, Riot wants to take Yuumi in a new player-friendly direction. They believe she will be best suited as a casual, friendly champion. That doesn’t mean she won’t be viable in the higher MMR, but she still will be significantly weaker compared to now. Riot also believes that she doesn’t necessarily improve her Professional Play experience. So, they will be trying to keep her out of Pro Play.
