Debuting in patch 12.2, Zeri immediately became an extremely hot champion with immense power and a very high win rate despite being a completely new character. Even Zeri’s creator – Riot August had to nerf this champion right after she was launched on the Vietnam League of Legends server for just one day. Specifically, Riot removed the interaction between Zeri’s ultimate and Runaan’s Hurricane. Nevertheless, she remained too strong, prompting them to continue nerfing Zeri in the recent patch 12.3.
A similar story occurred in Teamfight Tactics Season 6.5 when just one day after testing on the PBE server, Zeri received a heavy nerf. According to Riot Mortdog’s announcement, both her base damage and the scaling damage per shot from Zeri will be significantly reduced. This change means Zeri can no longer “wipe out” an entire enemy team at just one star level (even though she is a 5-cost champion).
So why is Zeri so powerful that Riot felt the need to nerf her just one day after launch? Essentially, Zeri possesses two of the most annoying traits in Teamfight Tactics: incredible mobility and the ability to deal damage through multiple targets. Therefore, Zeri is very hard to catch and can easily attack the enemy’s backline carries, especially with her already high base damage. Perhaps in the coming days, the duration of Zeri’s ultimate will also be nerfed.
Besides Zeri, Teamfight Tactics Season 6.5 still has many issues, the biggest being game bugs. Numerous cases like Gnar’s stone-throwing skill disappearing entirely just because the target was eliminated at the same moment he cast his ability. Additionally, the terrible targeting error of Ziggs from Season 6 still persists. Not to mention the countless other display bugs that champions, items, and more are facing.
Of course, with it being tested on the PBE server, bugs are to be expected. However, Riot Games needs to fix them as soon as possible because some bugs directly affect champion strength and gameplay.