Riot recently addressed the Prowler’s Claw one-shot Udyr build and will likely be nerfing it in Patch 13.1.
Riot just shared some of their plans going into 2023, and one of them is to keep all of Udy’s different builds viable.
Udyr, The Spirit Walker, safe to say, is one of the oldest champions in League of Legends. Although Udyr was released in 2009, his kit remained unchanged for over a decade, which made Udyr’s kit very outdated, especially compared to current champions. Thus, he desperately required a Visual Gameplay Update or VGU for short.
Riot, this year, to put him in line with the current champions, decided to do an Udyr full VGU update. The Udyr rework was teased earlier in the year and was shipped to the live servers on Patch 12.16. It was a massive success in terms of both visuals and gameplay.
Sadly, in terms of balance, it was a disaster. Udyr was a balance nightmare for Riot, and it was primarily because of his builds. Unlike most champions, Udyr has multiple different builds, and keeping all of them viable at the same time is a daunting task.
Although Riot has been trying to balance Udyr for a while, sometimes nerfing a build or buffing another, but not of them solved Udyrs balance issues. He either remained overpowered or became unplayable, and currently, he is overpowered. So, Riot in Patch 13.1, again trying to rebalance Udyr.
Read More: Riot Addresses Yuumi Nerf on League of Legends Patch 12.23.
Udyr’s Current State
Udyr is one of the, if not the strongest, champions in the game regarding raw power, all thanks to the buffs he received in patch 12.18. With the buffs along with the new Prowler’s Claw one-shot Udyr build, he can now hundred to zero almost any champions in the game, including tank champions.
In this clip posted to Reddit by u/BeJuAlways, we can clearly see how strong this Udyr build actually is.
Here Udyr casually one-shots a Sylas under the turret in less than one second, which is certainly not balanced.
Currently, his Lethality build, Prowler’s Claw > Ravenous Hydra, has a 60% win rate with an 18% ban rate in the solo queue. Moreover, he also has a solid 7% pick rate.
As for the other Udyr builds, especially the tank and AP builds, they are pretty underwhelming and in desperate need of buffs.
Riot’s Response
Well, what does Riot say about the current state of Udyr?
The lead Designer of the League Balance Team, Riot Phroxzon, shared the plans for the Udyr changes on his Twitter page.
Re: Udyr, we're not ignoring him; just need a bit of time to test some changes that will go out in 13.1. We want to keep his AP Fighter, Tank, Fighter, Leth builds intact, viable and differentiated.
Lethality build becomes more reasonable if he can't also one shot tanks.
— Matt Leung-Harrison (@RiotPhroxzon) December 2, 2022According to Riot, they clearly know about the problem and are working on a fix, but we will need to wait a few weeks for the changes to hit the live servers, as they are scheduled for patch 13.1.
As for the changes, they are looking to tone down the Lethality Udyr build, but they are also looking to buff the other builds and make them equally viable.
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