In League of Legends, “Yuumi” is really hated. Especially the pros can’t stand the cat as it will bond with another champion and become unassailable. Riot Games has listened to the feedback and announced a major overhaul. But that misses the real problem, the players find.
What’s the problem with Yuumi? Yuumi is a support that can attach to other champions. Once on a champion, she becomes untargetable but can still use abilities. In this way, she heals and strengthens her ally and can deal damage at the same time. Her ultimate ability, Final Chapter, is particularly strong, allowing her to hold down enemies.
At Worlds 2022, Yuumi had the highest ban rate of any champion at 85%. German Twitch streamer Frederik “NoWay” Hinteregger even called for a global ban for “that filth.”
But overall, Yuumi has rather weak stats. If you look at the ranked matches from iron to challenger, she only has a win rate of 47.2% (via LeagueofGraphs). Above all, the professionals exploit the full potential of the champion, while it is often useless in the lower range.
What is Riot doing now? They want to completely overhaul Yuumi in the future. Their goal: The champion should help newcomers to get along better with LoL, while at the same time becoming weaker for professionals.
But the planned adjustments are not well received.
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“How are you supposed to learn the basics if you’re not vulnerable?”
What exactly is changed? The exact details are yet to be determined, but Yuumi’s core mechanic—that she can mount other champions, making her invulnerable—remains in place. However, it should deal less damage and focus more on strengthening allies.
Riot wants to adjust their abilities to make them easier for opponents to dodge. This was very difficult, especially when Yuumi was betting on a very mobile champion.
What do the players criticize? First off, many players are surprised that Yuumi is supposed to be a rookie champion like Garen or Annie. After all, it costs 6,300 blue essences and thus requires a few hours of play.
But even if beginners play them, their style should be counterproductive, says the reddit user Plainnoob:
How are you supposed to learn the basics if you’re not vulnerable for the duration of a game? Yuumi is neither an Annie nor a Garen. Yes, you might need the lowest skill in the game for them. But she’s also the most niche character mechanically. The skills are clearly not transferrable. Perma-Untouchable is a noob trap that will fail on any other champ.
The players also criticize that the adjustments made by Riot Games will not change the hatred of Yuumi, because the core problem remains: she remains unassailable as long as she is sitting on a champion.
Some players predict that with the planned adjustments, Yuumi will become even weaker in the lower rankings, but will remain annoying among the pros.
What are the players asking for? There are various suggested solutions for Yuumi on reddit. One player recommends that Yuumi simply take some of the damage when sitting on top of another champion. That way, the ally would take less damage and Yuumi herself would have to make sure that she jumps off in time before she dies herself.
Another player suggests that Yuumi can only sit on a champion for a limited amount of time at a time. This would increase the skill level significantly because you have to plan when you leave the ally to avoid getting an even worse time when it happens automatically.
In any case, almost all players on reddit agree that the planned changes are going in the wrong direction. How they will turn out in concrete terms will only become apparent in 2023.
Balancing is a tricky topic in LoL anyway. For example, the lead balancer at Riot Games tried a weak champion himself and was promptly banned for it:
LoL: Riot bans its own key employee for trying the worst champion 20 times in a row