Boards›Gameplay

Yuumi's IDENTITY

TheDelighted·2/7/2020, 1:43:11 AM·3 votes·1,158 views

With all the recent buzz about soraka top, all those yuumi buffs that desperately try to make a mechanically broken champion relevant by stat buffs, I wanted to discuss the actual problem of yuumi and soraka. As I recall, soraka was reworked with the goal being that she is supposed to be League's core healer. As Vesh stated in 2014.

Right then, so first thing first. We wanted to carve out a really specific niche for Soraka so that we could make her really strong and unique in that role. The role that we identified for her was as the core healer of the League of Legends roster. So, I’m sure that raises a bunch of alarm bells for a number of you. More Info here

From the same post I shall quote another point which I think is really important to understand WHY soraka was reworked in the past and was always a pain in the ass to balance.

Well, there’s a difference between healing with and without meaningful costs and interaction. [...] Specifically, being a sustain fountain that clicks your ally until they are healthy doesn’t create a very compelling gameplay space, and certainly doesn’t feel like a fair interaction to enemies.

Fast forward to 2019 and we have Yuumi, a support which her core mechanism is to literally be invulnerable to damage while at the same time heal approximately the same as soraka with minimal to no impact whatsoever. For reference Yuumi's E heals for 210 (+40% AP) and gives a 45% attack speed buff while soraka heals for 200 (+60% AP). (Note here that since yuumi is attached to her adc her E's scaling is better because of her W's adaptive force innately providing her with more healing power)

My point of this post is not that yuumi should be nerfed or soraka should be buffed or any of those things. The point that I'm trying to get across is that Soraka has one niche that her whole kit is revolved around, and that is Healing.

Yuumi on the other hand is in a weird place, she lacks an Identity and clearly tries to be an enchanter without the bad things. To quote the League Wiki:

Enchanters focus on amplifying their allies' effectiveness by directly augmenting them and defending them from incoming threats. Enchanters themselves are often quite fragile and bring relatively low damage to the table, meaning they really only shine when grouped together with others.

What I think should be done to Yuumi:

  1. Find her identity, what makes her Yuumi. (I'll leave a poll to help out any Rioter if they happen to stumble upon this discussion)
  2. Build Upon that Identity and lore.

What I'm talking about is a big scale rework and I don't think riot would even consider it but whatever.

6 Comments

Revech2/7/2020, 2:00:44 AM3 votes

Let's add some data in here for the sake of completeness.

Zoomies CAST TIME: NONE COST: 100 / 115 / 130 / 145 / 160 MANACOOLDOWN: 12 / 11 / 10 / 9 / 8 HEAL 70 / 105 / 140 / 175 / 210 (+ 40% AP)

Astral Infusion COST: 10% MAXIMUM HEALTH + 50 / 55 / 60 / 65 / 70 MANA COOLDOWN: 8 / 6.5 / 5 / 3.5 / 2 HEAL 80 / 110 / 140 / 170 / 200 (+ 60% AP)

In summary Yuumi's heal is double the cooldown of Sorakas....this means soraka can preform 2 heals in the time Yuumi can preform 1 heal, in otherwards Soraka can heal for double what Yuumi can in the same amount of time). Oh and Yuumi's heal has 20% less ap scaling. As a Yuumi main with hundreds of games under my belt I can say Soraka outheals yuumi from early-late game unequivocally regardless of player skill. Also most support heal items have defense stats that are pretty much wasted stats on Yuumi but are required items regardless, making many heal items much more efficient on soraka.

Let's also add in that Soraka heal is half the hp cost compared to the mana cost of Yuumi's heal, and that stacking some health on soraka increases her survivability and does next to nothing for super squishy insta-death Yuumi.

Personally i'de like to see Yuumi reworked to have a separate support exclusive kit when detached that somehow interacts visually with the book. Not that any rito staff will read this or take it into consideration.

Baby Ghoul2/7/2020, 2:05:01 AM2 votes

I wouldn't really classify Yuumi as a dedicated healer.

She can burst heal more than Soraka, especially early game, but she cannot spam heal like Soraka. She doesn't have a global ultimate heal either. Soraka will always statistically heal more than Yuumi over the course of the game.

What I find interesting is that Soraka used to be a healbot, which is why she was so hated for the longest time. Many people in low ELO still consider her a healbot. She used to stand behind opponents and just heal them. Nobody could get to her easily because she was always behind her ADC.

Riot considered that toxic, so they changed her to where she cannot sustain her lane on heals alone. Soraka after the changes needed to assert herself in lane and harass the opponent. Today she can be somewhat of a lane bully if she's uncontested, hence why she's so good top lane. She can easily harass because there's not a Zyra to poke her out of lane and there's not a Nautilus waiting to get a lucky hook in. She's ranged and against champions with no early engage or range, she can be hard to fight off.

These were good changes to Soraka because it opened up the possibility for counterplay bot lane. Not everyone takes advantage of it mind you, there are a lot of ADCs that still buy Executioner's Calling on first back against Soraka, and then proceed to lose even harder to her harass. She transitions into a more heal oriented champion now besides being one right of the bat.

That's the difference, and it's why she's such a good pick top lane because after laning phase you can't really harass anymore as Soraka, which is fine, because her AoE silence/root and heals will sustain her through late game. She doesn't need to be more than that after and it's when you want to start building anti-healing.

The funny part is Soraka was changed because she had no interaction during the laning phase and they deemed that toxic, then they created Yuumi who cannot be touched until the champion she's attached to is killed. Even then, she can still bounce to another nearby champion.

Then when that proved to be disliked by pros and solo queue alike, they hit her with a series of nerfs like they somehow forgot that people don't like playing against that type of safety.

Why did they even bother with such a design? Simple number tweaks are never going to balance that out because enchanters are usually the first target on the enemy team.

nguforever2/7/2020, 2:27:12 AM1 votes

I mean maybe just Pyke her and make it to where she can’t buy health and nerf her health growth.

Paroe2/7/2020, 2:27:22 AM1 votes

Yuumi has an idenity, its constantly muddled by riot adding damage though. Yuumi is a buff. She makes one person better, and applies heals to keep that one person alive while buffing them. Her ultimate is impactful and fun, so it can stay as ultimate ability, but her Q really needs changes.

Passive: Book, mark!; Yuumi's Damaging abilities cause book to mark an enemy for 3 seconds, Allies who attack marked enemies refresh the mark. Enemies marked by book are revealed to the champion Yuumi is tethered to and allies recover 0.1AP HP on hit.

Q: Mana cost reduced to 40/50/60/70/80 Q: While tethered: No longer deals damage, duration is increased to three seconds, triggers spell effects (1 pity damage, like trundle pillar), and gives her carry 25 / 30 / 35 / 40 / 45%+5% per 100AP attack speed for 3 seconds.

Q: While untethered: Deals 80/120/160/200/240+0.8AP magic damage to the first enemy champion hit and slows them by 30+10% per 100AP.

W: Lockout on CC is now effected by cooldown reduction.

E: Attack speed removed, and put on her Q. Cooldown reduced to 10/9/8/7/6 seconds

Is a rework concept that i feel empowers Yuumi to be the best buff she can be while giving her reasonable counterplay and interaction, as well as rewarding her for the risk of getting off her carry.

Karn Bishop2/7/2020, 4:34:07 AM1 votes

Leave the cat alone hater.