Zeri and Annie have been two champions who have defined League of Legends‘ bottom lane meta over the last few updates, but in the game’s PBE servers, it looks like Riot Games’ developers are sending some significant nerfs that could shift their importance among both competitive teams and solo queue players.
On the League PBE, the Spark of Zaun has been grounded with some major changes to her kit. Her health growth is getting cut down by five, while her passive shield steal will be dropped by a whopping 15 percent. As a result, she should be a lot less difficult to deal with in teamfights, especially since she won’t be sapping away enemy shields while boosting her superior movement speed.
Her ultimate ability, Lightning Crash, is getting a 15-percent reduction to its bonus AD ratio, which should lower her initial burst at the start of a skirmish. Overall, Zeri should be much less effective in the later stages of her games, which in turn should affect her potency on the professional stage.
Annie has also been a premier pick for players around the competitive scene, especially in the LEC where she currently has a 100 percent pick-ban rate through the 2023 LEC Spring Split regular season. She also has the highest win rate of any support among solo queue players ranked Platinum and above, but next patch, she could see those numbers drop due to incoming nerfs.
Runeterra’s resident Dark Child is getting reductions to her Molten Shield’s base shield at later levels, going from 60-220 to 60-200. The ability is also getting a two-second cooldown increase, rising from 12-8 seconds to 12-10 seconds.
This shield has been the best tool in her kit since her buffs in Patch 13.3, which gives her and her teammates a whole gamut of durability and bonus movement speed. It also deals magic damage against any champions that attack the player with the shield active, making it the perfect buff for any marksman who wants to trade and skirmish with ease.
Patch 13.7 is scheduled to release on Wednesday, April 5.
