TL;DR
- Yuumi’s rework focuses on creating stronger bonds with a single ‘Best Friend’ ally rather than jumping between champions
- Her healing is now conditional and shield-based, requiring more strategic timing than constant sustain
- The Friendship system rewards staying with your AD carry, eliminating the problematic ‘attach to fed bruiser’ strategy
- All abilities gain enhanced effects when tethered to your Best Friend, creating clear power differentials
- Release scheduled for Patch 13.5 on March 7, 2023, with current PBE testing ongoing
The long-awaited Yuumi overhaul has finally arrived on the Public Beta Environment, bringing substantial modifications to her controversial kit that will reshape how players approach the magical cat support.
Yuumi consistently ranked among League of Legends’ most frustrating champions due to her untargetable attachment mechanics. Her previous design allowed her to hop onto any ally and become practically invulnerable while providing consistent healing, crowd control, and movement speed boosts. This safety mechanism created significant balance issues across both professional play and solo queue environments.
Riot Games initiated this Midscope Update specifically to address champions whose kits generated more problems than solutions. The update appeared unexpectedly on February 24, deviating from Riot’s standard PBE update schedule, indicating the urgency of fixing Yuumi’s problematic design.
Yuumi Rework Ability Breakdown
Passive – Feline Friendship
Yuumi’s new passive creates a dynamic healing system tied to enemy engagement. When she damages opponents, she periodically gains self-healing that can transfer to attached allies if she connects shortly after activation. The Friendship stacking mechanism rewards consistent partnership—allies accumulate Friendship points by securing minion last hits or champion takedowns. Being tethered to your team’s highest Friendship ally unlocks enhanced ability effects, creating clear strategic priorities.
Q – Prowling Projectile
Yuumi’s Q maintains its projectile nature but with refined control mechanics. The skillshot inflicts magical damage and applies slowing effects on initial contact. While attached, players gain temporary directional influence over the missile’s path before trajectory locking occurs. Critical strategic note: control duration has been significantly reduced compared to previous iterations.
Best Friend Enhancement: The slowing potency receives automatic amplification, and striking enemy champions grants your Best Friend bonus magical damage on their basic attacks. The slow intensity can escalate up to 75%, directly scaling with your attached ally’s Critical Strike statistics.
W – You and Me!
Yuumi’s attachment ability preserves its core functionality with crucial balancing adjustments. Passively, she gains augmented shielding and healing effectiveness based on her Best Friend’s level during attachment. They also receive healing augmentation on their auto-attacks. Activation enables untargetable attachment to allies, with detachment or transfer available through ability reactivation. Important limitation: if Yuumi suffers crowd control effects, she cannot use You and Me! for five seconds—a significant vulnerability introduction.
E – Zoomies
Yuumi’s E undergoes the most fundamental transformation, shifting from healing to shielding mechanics. She now grants herself protective barriers while receiving attack speed and mobility bonuses that persist throughout the shield duration. When attached, these benefits transfer completely to her ally partner, including 20-40 mana restoration alongside the damage mitigation.
R – Final Chapter
Yuumi’s ultimate maintains visual similarity but introduces completely reworked functionality. She channels for 3.5 seconds, releasing five waves (down from seven previously) that impact both allied and enemy units. While attached, players gain precision targeting control over each wave’s placement. Enemies experience escalating magical damage with consecutive hits alongside slowing effects, while allies receive healing with excess healing converting to temporary shields. Best Friend attachment amplifies healing potency and grants additional Armor and Magic Resistance to your primary partner.
Strategic Impact: Yuumi’s New Playstyle Requirements
These comprehensive ability modifications fundamentally alter Yuumi’s strategic positioning and decision-making requirements. The rework introduces several paradigm shifts that demand adaptation from both Yuumi players and their teams.
Yuumi’s power distribution now centers around her Best Friend synergies, creating strong incentives to maintain proximity to her primary partner. Since Yuumi requires consistent partnership and bottom lane represents League’s only dedicated duo lane, her Best Friend will almost exclusively be the AD carry. This directly addresses her previous problematic flexibility to attach to any fed team member—whether jungler, mid laner, or top laner—and amplify their already dominant positions. The redesign specifically prevents this by creating substantial power disparities between Best Friend and other allies.
Yuumi’s Q now provides on-hit healing augmentation for her Best Friend while slowing effectiveness scales with critical strike chance. Consequently, Yuumi’s Q delivers maximum value when paired with critical-focused marksmen compared to other champion types. She also receives enhanced healing and shielding metrics while connected to her Best Friend, reinforcing attachment consistency. While Yuumi’s E lacks Best Friend scaling, the transition from healing to shielding means she only generates value when actively preventing damage rather than restoring health between engagements.
Advanced Strategy Tip: Master timing your detachment moments during laning phase to proc passive healing transfers while minimizing vulnerability windows.
Yuumi Rework Release Timeline and Access
The Yuumi overhaul remains on track for deployment with Patch 13.5, scheduled for March 7, 2023. This redesigned version positions Yuumi as an ideal new player companion perfect for duo laning with less experienced partners entering League of Legends. Her persistent pick-or-ban status in professional competition, combined with frustrating solo queue experiences, constituted the primary motivations for this comprehensive update.
The rework will undergo approximately two weeks of Public Beta Environment testing before transitioning to live servers. Throughout this period, Riot Games will continuously refine her new design and prepare for deployment to millions of players globally. This iteration appears significantly healthier, reducing healing frequency and encouraging AD carry partnership over juggernaut attachment.
For players eager to experience the transformed Yuumi before live release, similar comprehensive guide approaches can help master the new mechanics. Players should sign up for PBE access to participate in testing and provide feedback.
Common Mistake to Avoid: Don’t automatically reattach to different allies during team fights—maintaining Best Friend connection provides substantially superior value.
Action Checklist
- Practice passive proc timing by detaching briefly during trades to maximize healing transfer efficiency
- Identify your Best Friend early and maintain consistent attachment to maximize ability enhancements
- Master Q control window limitations—the reduced duration requires more precise timing
- Develop detachment awareness to avoid crowd control effects that disable your W for 5 seconds
No reproduction without permission：Game Guides Online » Yuumi rework abilities explained and release date revealed Complete guide to Yuumi's reworked abilities, strategic changes, and March 2023 release timeline