Vekkna

To start, I'd like to thank the champ designers for making the first champ in 5 years that I both want to play and am capable of playing. And that I actually want to continue playing!

Question: It's still early, obvs, but I've had solid success using Coin, rushing Deathcap, stacking AP runes (Eyeball, Focus, Storm), and using Q mostly to zone or check bushes. At 1 item you're basically worth a BF and ~50% MS.

Have you seen any success with these sorts of builds, or is Q deliberately intended to be ranked first and W last?

I'm glad you like her!

Q is definitely supposed to be the first max, and W maxed last. Your W doesn't really scale with levels so much as it scales with items in the game. If you level it up at level 3, for example, you're gaining the extra stats on your support item and your ADC's Doran's blade. Compared to the extra stats you get from Q rank up, it's not even close. I do like the AP build personally, but if you want to be threatening your enemy, I think you need to be putting points into Q.

Youseph_Seraph

Are enchanter supports going to receive more attention? I mean, the last enchanter was released in 2013 and the enchanters that received some work between that period were just Janna and Zilean mini-gameplay update and Taric VGU (this one is a mix between an enchanter and a warden). As a enchanter support main, I'd like to see more enchanters.

Why is Yuumi made to be a female support? The only 2 male enchanters were released back in the early league days...

We made Yuumi specifically because we hadn't made an enchanter in awhile. I'm not sure when the next one would come out, but we always try and make sure that we're making champs for all player types; it can just take awhile some times.

KawaiiKoshka

Is this related to the decision to give her a lower base attack range (500)? She would lose in a poke war with other ranged supports from her low stats anyway, and if she can't auto attack while attached, it seems like it was made to deter her from auto attacking in general

The range decrease was because at high levels, Yuumi can just auto attack harass for free, and dodge every counter attack by attaching to her ally. At 550, Yuumi's harass was super oppressive.

xXdimmitsarasXx

How do you feel about the community reaction to her entrance in the game?

We figured she'd be weak on release due to the learning curve, but we underestimated by how much. Hoping that the hotfix pushes her out of meme territory, but we always kind of expected players would need some time to get used to her play style.

MaliciousMetal

Okay I got a few!

Would Yuumi get along with Skarner?

Why does she refer to Morde as a big metal cat, is it because of his awesome new horns or is there another reason. Other than Morde totally being the kind of villain who'd have a cat to stroke with his clawed gauntlet...Which is probably why he kept Veigar around.

And lastly. When are we getting a Nekonomicon skin for Yuumi?

Nekonomicon was one of my favorite things that I saw posted in r/yuumimains right after her release. I can't believe I never thought of it.

march9191

Do you think yuumi might be able to spawn in a new meta of the support going mid or top?

Probably not, bot control has historically been too important, but I'm not really an expert. I'd be real happy if different champions were enabled to go bot lane because of her, though!

Precat8

Her Q ability is really unique what were the prototypes?

The first version of this spell actually spawned the cat from the polymorph of one of Lulu's skins.

pedrofracassi

Yuumi plushies when????

I would also like to know this.

lavajci

To follow-up along that line of thinking, are there any ADCs that would work well as a solo-lane right now, so the Yuumi can be more of a roamer?

Historically Ezreal can do it or someone with wave clear, but Yuumi really wants to get levels first so she can one, give solid heals and catch with her Q and two, its not in a state of the game where she could run into the enemy jungler while roaming alone.

Dewku

How many of you guys are weebs

Shockingly high.

DeathSeesAll

Is there a particular reason why she can not auto attack during her W?

I can understand that you don't want her to build like an ADC while attached to a tank, but as we've seen with "turret" Kog'maw, it shouldn't be a problem to reduce her damage while using her W to avoid this.

We went back and forth on this. There was one playtest where Meddler played Yuumi and just built full crit Attack speed. It was... gross.

The major reason is that I don't think a high damage threat champion is compatible with long term untargetability. You could easily put an ADC Yuumi on an Alistar support and now your ADC all of a sudden has an extra 2000 health, 50% Damage Reduction and a bunch of CC.

We could make her auto attacks very weak while attached, but at that point you're now asking your lane partner to position for both their auto attacks and Yuumi's, which is a another constant pain point the bot laner maybe didn't ask for. The Q range asks them to do a small amount of work, and I think that's the right amount.

Aoaelos

What do you think that is the strategic niche of Yuumi? Why should i pick her over Sona or Janna or any other enchantress if my goal is solely to win?

She's very good at following divers, juggernauts, and vanguards into the backline. Sona and Janna can't really help a Camille who wants to go after the enemy ADC, but Yuumi absolutely can. Yuumi is also very good in a pick comp, because your ult and a max rank Q is an excellent tool for slowing a target long enough for your ally to catch up to them.

justintoronto

Right now I see a lot of Yuumis that just permanently attached, leading to them just Q spamming and healing whenever. Was that a playstyle risk/concern during their development?

We figured some players would want to play it that way. As a playstyle it functions, although the tuning as it is probably makes it lower win rate than we'd like. The good news about it is that Yuumi is the kind of champion where while you're doing that, you'll have the time to explore other things you can be doing. Times to ward, times to auto attack, times to hop between your allies. It remains to be seen if this playstyle still sticks with Yuumi players or if over time they learn to access the full range of her power.

Marace55

Give me your best cat puns right meow!

No.

march9191

What champs do you think have the best synergy with yuumi?

Basically anyone that wants to chase down enemies. She's very good at assisting champs that want that. Udyr, Nunu, Camille.... Juggernauts and Divers love having a pocket Yuumi.

jrespeed

What you’ve noticed monitoring her play so far that caused her to have such a low win rate?

I think the biggest thing is that the learning curve for playing the champion is steeper than we initially thought. There are a bunch of things you have to do differently to access Yuumi's power. You should be auto attack harassing, which is a very non-obvious thing to do for a support that has the option of being untargetable. You also need to learn when to be on characters other than the ADC, and how to drive the Q missile. She doesn't play like other enchanters; her peel is worse, but her aggressive picking potential is much better.

moosebog

So I’ve seen a lot of different yuumi builds but it feels like she’s more impactful when she’s connected to a strong mid or top rather than adc. My question is, is it supposed to be like that?

Yes, somewhat. A consequence of her being untargetable is that among enchanters, she can uniquely follow a diver into the back line and support them without getting blown up. Rather than fight that interaction, we made sure that Yuumi was giving her attached partner the kind of tools a diver, fighter or tank wanted (Movespeed and chase potential being the big ones). She should still be okay when attached to a squishy marksman, but probably not as good as having a Janna right there.

nickgiraffeman

Shen wouldnt be a carry, the whole goal of this lane would be to snowball your other lanes without losing tower since you can just tp all over the place assuming yuumi can ride shen when he tps

River Yuumi

more_like_eeyore

My favourite part about it, and I have no idea if this is intentional, is that it's like using a laser pointer on a cat.

The comparison has been made :D

unphantomable

Cat.

Cat!