Cover-Credits:
At the end of 2022, Riot Games announced that it would be completely reworking League of Legends’ most hated champion, Yuumi. The cat champion was released in 2019 and the developers hold Yuumi in a special place since she allowed new players to learn the game quickly and experience League of Legends swiftly. However, her never-ending heals, shields, and scaling became a huge menace and a problem to balance. Now, Riot Games has readied her rework and her new ability kit is all set to make its way into League of Legends via LoL Patch 13.4 in early March.
Here’s everything we know about the Yuumi rework in League of Legends that will hit the Summoner’s Rift in LoL Patch 13.5 on 8th March.
Yuumi Rework: New abilities and Riot Games’ philosophy explained
League of Legends Lead Designer Matt “Phroxzon” Leung-Harrison revealed Yuumi’s reworked kit with her new abilities on Twitter. The newly reworked Yuumi is also available for testing on the Public Beta Environment (PBE).
Phroxzon explained that Yuumi currently has two main problems:
She is frustrating to play against, especially when optimized.
She was most powerful in pro play
Riot Games stated that it intends to reduce the frustration of playing against Yuumi and rein in her powers in pro play. It added that it still wants Yuumi to be an easy-to-learn champion but hard to master.
Some of the ways Riot Games is making Yuumi less frustrating are as follows:
Yuumi’s Q will be more dodgeable
Her healing is tied to landing her Q
Yuumi’s ultimate will no longer root players
Her best ally to sit on will be her lane partner and she will incur costs for swapping to fighters or assassins (or mobile allies)
Since Riot Games wants her to be beginner-friendly, the reworked Yuumi will be available for players to buy at 450 Blue Essence. Phroxzon said, “Yuumi is going live in 13.5. We want Yuumi to be a great champion to bring a new friend into the game (and also a great duo experience generally) and we’re making changes to our outdated pricing model [for] this patch to reflect this philosophy (she will be 450 BE now).”
First, let us look at Yuumi’s base stats:
Health growth per level: 84 >>> 69
Base mana: 400 >>> 440
Her passive and abilities are as follows:
Passive: Feline Friendship
When Yuumi’s spells or attacks affect champions, she heals herself and charges a heal for her allies. If she attaches within the next 4 seconds, she brings the heal to her ally. While attached, this effect automatically occurs.
While attached, Yuumi builds ‘friendship’ whenever her ally kills champions and minions. Each ally has their own unique Friendship score. While attached to her ‘Best Friend’, her abilities gain bonus effects.
Cooldown: 20-10 seconds (levels 1-11)
Heal amount: 20-105 (+15% Ability Power [AP]) levels 1-18
While her passive is ready, Yuumi’s auto attack range is increased by 50.
Q: Prowling Projectile
Yuumi fires a missile that slows the first enemy hit. If cast while attached, Yuumi can control the missile for a short period before it becomes empowered, greatly accelerating and slowing enemies by an increased amount.
Best Friend bonus: The slow will always be empowered and hitting enemy champions also grants 10/12/14/16/18/20 (+10% AP) on-hit damage to her ally for 5 seconds. This damage is increased by up to 75% based on her ally’s crit chance.
Cooldown: 7.5/7.25/7/6.75/6.5/6,25
Mana cost: 50
Base damage: 60/90/120/150/180/210 (+20% AP)
Base slow: 20% decaying over 1 second
Empowered damage: 80/140/200/260/320/380 (+35% AP)
Empowered slow: 55/60/65/70/75/80% decaying over 2 seconds
Missile width: 65 >>> 55
W: You and Me!
Adaptive force to Yuumi and her ally: Removed
Best Friend Bonus: Yuumi gains an additional 10-20% heal and shield power (based on ally level) and her Anchored ally gains 3/5/7/9/11 (+4% AP) on-hit healing. This is affected by Yuumi’s Heal and Shield power.
No longer procs Summon Aery’s shield
E: Zoomies!
Now shields allies instead of healing
Cooldown: 12/11.5/11/10.5/10 seconds
Mana cost: 80/90/100/110/120
Shield amount: 90/120/150/180/210 (+30% AP)
Movespeed bonus: 20% while shield persists
Attack speed: 35% (+8% per 100 AP)
Restores 20/24/28/32/36 mana to her Anchor (not herself), increased by up to 100% based on their missing mana
R: Final Chapter
For 3.5 seconds, Yuumi fires 5 magical waves that affect enemies and allies. If cast while attached, Yuumi can steer the waves to follow her mouse.
For ally champions, the waves heal. The heal is increased by 130% on her Best Friend. All excess healing is converted to a shield, lasting 3 seconds after the ability ends.
For all enemies, the waves deal damage and apply a stacking slow.
Cooldown: 120/110/100
Damage per wave: 75/100/125 (+20% AP)
Heal amount per wave: 35/50/65 (+15% AP)
Slow duration: 1.25 seconds
Slow amount: 10% +10% per wave hit (up to 50% slow)
Best Friend bonus: Waves also grant Yuumi’s Best Friend 20/40/60 (+10% AP) armor and magic resist for the duration of the spell.
