A Zoe main's response to the Zoe nerf

A Eulogy For Zoe (2017-2018)
I have been playing league since 2011. In that time there have been a select few champs that riot gave to us that I truely loved and are the major reason i still play the game today. They are jinx, fizz and most recently zoe. Jinx was the greatest thing riot had ever made in my opinion up until that dark time for adc mains (adc 2017). In that period i was forced to say farewell to a champ who i had bought one 950, 1350 and 1850 skin on for the sake of maintaining my rank. I still played ever every now and then because she still maintained some semblance to the champ I fell in love with just much weaker and useless if you were trying to win. It was in that time i picked back up my old main who had just been reworked in the assassin's patch fizz. Fizz at the time was truly unjustifiable strong with his ult being way to forgiving on inaccuracy. Inevitable riot woke up and nerfed the poor fish shooting his early game damage in his w nerf (which also significantly weakened his csing ability) and changing his R's hit box. Again it hurt seeing my favorite monster be defanged but at the same time he still maintained his assassin character and was still capable of killing in most cases any champion if he landed a max length ult on them making the champ still satisfying to play whilst making it so that if matched against a fizz one can reasonably hold their own. The point being despite being nerfed he was still at heart the same fish that his mains loved.

It is at this point which i now bring into question the Zoe nerf. When zoe was released i played her for the first time and just as most of the players who bought zoe when she was fresh off the PBE I experienced a very long period of grey screen since she is by no means the easiest champ to play. In playing her though I discovered her strengths and weaknesses and how brilliantly fleshed out a character she was. She is utterly destroyed by any assassin with a reliable gap close and his little to no response to being caught. She has an excellent passively csing play style but she can also flex her muscles and look for surprise level 2 burst to take first blood. She steroids excellently into late game but admit ably I always found the true damage on her E was a bit ridiculous. Overall she was a delightful champ to play and it was always satisfying seeing the enemy adc, mid or jungle pop after getting hit in the face with a bubble. Zoe for me was the first champ that really renewed my love for the game since jinx came out all those years ago.

In addressing the nerf i must note that, by the majority of the community, this nerf was well received and perceived as a necessary measure to balance the champion and applauded riot for their decision. However this nerf wasn't really a nerf. It felt to zoe mains as though riot was trying to do the only thing they could to completely remove the champ from the game that didn't involve out right deleting her and refunding every player who purchased her or her skin. She can no longer wave clear. In doing so she can no longer hold her lane. She can no longer kill her lane opponent in most cases. The exact same play style that would have gotten me a 20/3 with 260 cs at 30 game against a lux now makes me go 1/7 with 120 cs. She has completely lost any part of what made her the champion we loved and put our money into as well as hours of our lives into perfecting. Riot you robbed us and the rest of the community applauds you for it. Congratulations you got away with murder Don't get me wrong she was broken before and needed nerfing. My issue is riots selling us a product and then completely destroying it at our expense.

I have now lost all faith in riot's abilities to make sound unbiased decisions as a company and to refrain from exploiting their audience for profit then damaging said commodity at the expense of the customer so to gain further profit from their other customers.

To all my fellow former Zoe mains out there reading this I would like to say to you that I will be parting ways with what was once my favorite video game and moving onto another video game which i will spend my time on (fortnite). I urge all of you to do the same and take a stand against riot until they do the thing the entire community has been echoing for years: "FIX YOUR GAME"

In Loving Memory Of Zoe (2017-2018) and League of Legends (2009-2018), May Their Souls Rest in Peace.