Zeri, League of Legends’ newest champion, is shown in a Twitter clip to have a low damage output. League of Legends’ latest patch, 12.2, added Zeri earlier this week. Act One of Riot Games’ tactical FPS Valorant features a new duelist agent named Neon, who shares a voice actor with Zeri (the protagonist). Additionally, the two characters share a certain attitude and fashion sense, as well as a fondness for electricity.
In spite of the fact that many players have expressed excitement about the new champion, it has been widely agreed that she lacks in the area of damage. When attacking, Zeri uses her skill shot Burst Fire, which pierces enemies, rather than her auto-attack as her default mode of attack. This gives the impression that Zeri is playing an FPS game. This seemingly insignificant adjustment has a profound effect on Zeri’s gameplay, allowing him to stand out from other world-class marksmen.
Twitter today saw TL Yeon post a video of himself playing Zeri from Team Liquid’s academy ADC, TL Yeon. The video shows Yeon running rings around the opposing team with Zeri’s ultimate and her inherent mobility. However, despite the fact that the video shows Zeri’s extreme agility, it also shows her struggling to kill even one enemy champion. Zeri’s Burst Fire consistently deals negligible damage to the opposing team throughout the clip. For a marksman in League of Legends, especially one who lacks utility, the lack of damage is a major concern.
In addition to noticing Zeri’s poor damage output, there are a few other things to take note of during this fight. Even though Zeri deals very little damage, she is able to move quickly enough to avoid most of the other champions and their abilities throughout the fight. Indeed, Yeon maintains a movement speed of at least 1000 throughout the entire clip, with peaks of up to 1524. In addition to his Berserker’s Greaves, Yeon has completed Trinity Force and Runaan’s Hurricane during the fight. However, there is still a lot of testing to be done on Zeri before any definitive conclusions can be drawn about how she should be played.
Zeri fans should both be inspired and dejected by this video. She may lack in damage numbers, but the Spark of Zaun clearly has the potential to be both fun and potent with a little help from a few damage buffs. While it’s easy to look at the video and conclude that Zeri is an AD Carry who can’t harm enemy champions, it’s important to remember that if Zeri were able to easily kill enemies while dodging away from every ability the opposing team can throw at her, League of Legends would have a major problem of a completely different kind.