Yuumi hotfix buff raises more questions, Maokai rework on PBE

Every professional player is losing their mind at the thought of Yuumi getting buffed after dominating the meta all summer. Maokai is receiving changes to help him return to the jungle and top lane role.

Yuumi hotfix buff

Less than 15 hours after patch 12.16 hit the live servers, on which Yuumi received a small nerf to her E, she is getting hotfix buffed. Her Q ability got a flat damage increase of 50 at the highest ranks and also does 9% of current health instead of 8%. This also comes ahead of the summer split playoffs in the major regions and heading into Worlds patches.

It’s no secret that Yuumi has been a thorn in the League community ever since she was released. Described by many as promoting “toxic” gameplay, she has had a ban rate of over 20% worldwide ever since her release. But it is not just casual players that dislike her. Many pro players have stated that there is no way to make Yuumi fair to play against in a controlled and competitive environment.

Yuumi dominates LEC Summer

One of every five League games across the World doesn’t have Yuumi in it. And that number was probably higher in 2019, where she dominated the bot lane meta. It seems we are heading in the same trajectory, with Yuumi rocking a 95% presence in the LEC this summer split. This number is lower in other major regions, but the win rate is never below 50%. More importantly, she has a 30% presence in all competitive League games in season 12, with a 49% win rate.

Despite already being the most polarizing champion in League’s roster pool, and being picked or banned in every third competitive League game across the world, she is getting buffed again. More worryingly, Riot are well aware of this, so they tried to buff her damage output without returning her to 2019 form. But it appears that the damage has already been done. 

Maokai rework on PBE servers

At the same time, Riot also announced that Maokai has finally received some attention, with changes going live on PBE right away. His outdated kit has been outshined by new champions in the top lane and jungle for quite some time now, only finding success in the support role.

Even there he was an example of toxic gameplay, being a sappling spam bot, building ability power on a tank, and being useless late game. Nobody but the Maokai player enjoyed having him in the game at some point, regardless if you were laning against him or he got outscaled. That’s why he’s receiving major adjustments and damage buffs to his entire kit, to hopefully fit in modern League moving forward.

Maokai ability changes

His passive will now have its cooldown decreased by 1 second per auto attack received from a jungle monster. This should benefit jungle Maokai greatly and help him have a healthier clear. 

They removed the max health damage on his E ability and put it on his Q ability. It will now also do more flat damage late game, and do bonus damage against jungle monsters.

His E ability will now slow harder, do more flat damage and scale better with ability power. But his empowered bush damage will only affect champions and jungle monsters, not minions. The goal is to balance him towards three lanes, and this would make him dominate the top lane by pushing the wave quickly.

His ultimate ability will now move faster, speed up even more over time, and even Maokai will receive a movement speed boost for each enemy hit. This sounds like a great change, considering all new champions have dashes and other movement abilities, so old champions like Maokai can barely engage on them.

Header: Riot Games