Riot rush out Xayah nerfs to counter broken new League of Legends build

Xayah has finally burst out into the League of Legends meta for the first time in Season 11 thanks to a broken new Lethality build. However, Riot are pushing a hotfix nerf on LoL patch 11.22 to counter the OP strategy. Vi is also facing some nerfs in the update.

After months on the sidelines, Xayah has broken out into the League of Legends meta in Season 11.

Instead of the traditional crit-heavy build players are accustomed to on the marksman, Lethality was in vogue. Out goes Galeforce, with the armor-negating stat piercing through squishes and tanks alike.

The new build ⁠— centered around Eclipse, Muramana, Infinity Edge, and one of Serylda’s Grudge or Lord Dominik’s Regards ⁠— abused her short Q cooldown (which has been buffed consistently in Season 11) to dish out a ton of poke damage from afar.

With the new tech, Xayah’s win rate skyrocketed from 48.64% on patch 11.20 to 52.67% as of the November 3 update. Her playrate also jumped from a measly 3.32% to 11.31%, making her the best in her role.

The rise of the new build has forced Riot to quickly ship a hotfix after League of Legends patch 11.22, nerfing the Rebel on November 4.

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“Xayah’s lethality build has caught on over the last few weeks and is quite overpowered,” developer Phlox said on Twitter.

“[Xayah was] pretty wildly out of line and waiting [for] another patch would’ve caused a lot of messed up games, especially at the end of the ranked season,” they later added on Reddit.

The changes revert her patch 11.21 Q cooldown buffs, while also taking out a bit of damage at the same time. The changes in tandem won’t entirely gut the Lethality Xayah build, but she will be significantly weaker.

LoL patch 11.22 hotfix includes Vi nerfs after script changes

Xayah wasn’t the only League of Legends champion touched in the patch 11.22 hotfix.

The newly-updated Vi ⁠— who received a total script overhaul for the first time since her Season 2 release ⁠— also landed a bit too well for Riot’s liking.

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“Vi’s recent rescript added a lot of consistency to her spells which pushed her over the edge of balanced,” Phlox said.

The Piltover Enforcer’s base stats are being tweaked to reduce her scaling into the late game, and her ultimate knockup duration has been cut from 1.4 seconds to 1.3 seconds.

You can find the full list of Vi and Xayah nerfs in the LoL patch 11.22 hotfix below.

LoL patch 11.22 hotfix notes for Vi and Xayah

Vi

Q: Double Daggers

• Damage: 50/75/100/125/150 → 45/65/85/105/125
• Cooldown: 10/8.5/7/5.5/4 seconds → 10/9/8/7/6

Xayah

Base Stats

• Armor per level: 4 → 3.5
• AD per level: 3.5 → 3

R: Assault and Battery

• Stun duration: 1.4 seconds → 1.3 seconds