Part 1 of 2: Yuumi's reveal highlights massive issues with the support roster
Short version: Yuumi's game play, unlike almost every other enchanter, seems to have more room for skill expression, clear strengths and weaknesses, and isn't nearly as one-dimensional as other enchanter champions (at least when looking at it). Sure, we SHOULD actually PLAY the champion before making stark conclusions on them, but for the sake of what I'm trying to accomplish here, I have a need to make a prediction before she comes out. If my prediction holds true, then I'll make a follow-up post. If it doesn't, I'll just have to make a follow-up post stating I'm wrong. That said, given what's in Yuumi's kit, and given her apparently atrocious survivability when caught, other supports that don't deal with all this extra nuance when making or denying plays will still beat out a character like Yuumi in the long run.
First, let me start by saying that Yuumi's design either in a vacuum or in a world where supports (if not the entirety of bot lane) are better designed and balanced is actually quite exciting. She's an enchantress champion that can latch onto aggressive play makers to synergize with hard engages to lock down entire teams, but her defensive capabilities are rather poor. It's a cool trade off where you sacrifice defense for a safer offense for divers, skirmishers, and juggernauts, and she even has a MS boosting heal to emphasize this. HOWEVER, Yuumi, like any support in this game, is going to be tied to a marksman by the hip in nearly any competitive game of League, solo queue or pro. In this situation, Yuumi's abilities are significantly less valuable since her peel is atrocious (even her ult root can be avoided by getting hit by less than 3 waves), her damage output is bad, and if she's attached to someone, it's basically a glorified 1v2. Much like I've been saying for a mad minute (until I gave up because no one actually cares), this excessively stale state of bot lane limits the types of strategies that can be considered viable. Sure, some
cheesy ass shit can crop up from time to time
, but for the most part it's just marksmen game in and game out, and if you aren't relevant to that meta, you aren't relevant.
So with the Yuumi-specific issue out of the way, here's the second problem: Support champions, older ones especially, don't have much nuance to being played well.
The topic that I used to focus on Sona is now something that, honestly, pertains to most (not all, but most) support picks. Too many support picks do way too little to get way too much. Nothing to aim, nothing to coordinate, nothing to properly master. It's all just targeted engage or targeted disengage. Janna's overloaded kit, Alistar's ridiculous Q > W combo invalidating the entire enchanter roster by himself (while having sustain for some reason), Soraka being defined by the one button she can press the most (before it was W and now it's E) with the least counter-play, and so on. It's a problem that's enveloping most of the support roster. Even if Riot's trying to make supports that are largely different from that style now, like Pyke and Yuumi, we still have plenty of supports that just sort of press a button and get a crap ton of mileage without much nuance to play around. If Riot doesn't actually visit these supports to do something about them, there's going to be very little room for new supports to thrive in the future unless you just "Janna" all the old supports and call that gutting a "mini-rework".
Thus, even in a world where Yuumi exists and her kit's fun to play and all that jazz, her competition's way too rough. You COULD be Yuumi, or you can just mash out some shield/heal from the fog of war and not deal with actually coordinating your positioning on the map or any of that bs. And if you pick Yuumi, your whole lane's just food for catcher/vanguard supports ("glorified 1v2"). I don't want to write off Yuumi outright due to her play making (play assisting?) potential, but it doesn't look super good if other play makers have better defenses and other defensive supports can actually peel unlike her. Even Sona has better defensive capabilities than Yuumi, and has better defensive stats than Yuumi. That's actually nightmarish.
We'll see how it lands when Yuumi comes out, but I have some really bad vibes about it all. She's still cool, but "cool" =/= "good".
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