Massive Zeri buffs in League of Legends' PBE looks to push her towards crit-based builds

Zeri is a champion who was released along with League of Legends season 12. She is a unique ADC who provides a lot of versatility in terms of builds within the game.

However, on account of an extremely overloaded kit, the developers ended up nerfing her a bit too much, which in turn led to Zeri getting completely destroyed. Fortunately, it seems that Zeri is back on the menu once again as she received a brand new set of buffs in the PBE (Public Beta Environment), which improved her crit-build viability by a lot.

These buffs are primarily focused towards enhancing her AD (Attack Damage) ratio and thereby help her stand her ground alongside other major ADCs in the game.

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Full details regarding Zeri's changes in League of Legends' PBE

It is important to mention that the changes to Zeri will go live alongside patch 12.11. This is the same patch that Bel'Veth releases within League of Legends, and the Ocean Song skins will become available for purchase as well.

It should come as no surprise that the buffs to Zeri are coming alongside her brand new skin. However, the champion is sort of dead right now, thus, it might just be a coincidence.

In any case, the buffs that Zeri is going to receive have been provided below:

Burst Fire (Q)

• Damage increased from [7/9/11/13/15 + 110/112.5/115/117.5/120% AD] to [8/11/14/17/20 + 110/115/120/125/130% AD]
• Slow changed from [18/26/34/42/50% for 1 sec] to [99% for 0.25 sec]
• Old: "A fully charged Attack deals x+x max Health magic damage, Slows by x% for x seconds and consumes all charge"
• New: "A fully charged Attack deals x+x max Health magic damage and consumes all charge"
• Energized AP ratio increased from 80% to 90%
• Energized HP ration increased from [1-10%] to [3-15%]

Ultrashock Laser (W)

• Cooldown reduced from 13/12/11/10/9 to 12/11/10/9/8s
• AD ratio increased from 140% to 150%
• slow lowered from 30/40/50/60/70% to 30/35/40/45/50%
• [New]: If the pulse hits a terrain, it expands into a laser that applies the effects in an area and Critically Strikes Champions and Monsters
• [New]: Cast time now scales with attack speed

Spark Surge (E)

• Cooldown lowered from 26/24.5/23/21.5/20 to 24/21.5/19/16.5/14
• Cooldown reduction lowered from 1s to 0.75s
• [Changed]: Critical Strikes reduce the cooldown 2 additional times
• Old: If Burst Fire (Q) critically strikes it reduces cooldown only on additional time

Lightning Crash (R)

• Cooldown reduced from 120/95/70 to 100/85/70
• movespeed per stack reduced from 1.5% to 1%
• stacks on champion hit increased from 4 to 10
• [Changed]: Critical strikes add 2 additional stacks
• [Old]: If Burst Fire (Q) critically strikes it adds an additional stack

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These changes definitely look good on paper, though they force players towards crit builds. The problem is that other champions like Jinx, Aphelios, and Xayah scale much better on crit within League of Legends, thus it could still affect the viability of Zeri in the late game.