The Fastest Hypercarry
Zeri is a non-standard hypercarry. She has a very unique design whilst not being a hard champion and the most fun ADC to play, in my opinion. Everyone should at least try her out.
She plays way differently than any other champion but in return offers really good scaling, a hybrid damage profile (deals both Magic and Physical damage), good burst and A LOT of AoE damage. Even though she is easy to pickup you can go a long way by getting good enough.
Abilities
The first thing you'll notice when playing Zeri is the fact you start with Q every game. The reason for it being this is your main ability; you HAVE to press Q in order to Basic Attack since it's a skillshot composed of 7 bullets which can be bodyblocked by anything.
As part of your passive, your Right Click will still attack whatever you click but unless fully charged (you can know if it is with the bar under your Mana above Zeri) it will deal very little magic damage, however it does execute targets that are under a very small threshold (mostly for last hitting minions). When fully charged it will deal Max HP % Magic Damage.
Your W throws a linear skillshot that only hits the first target and slows it. If you throw it at terrain however it will increase the size, hit anyone inside it and Critically Strike.
E is what you will put a point in at Level 2 and also what you max after Q. Its just a small dash but it allows you to ride terrain in a straight line all the way to the other side. After the dash your Q is empowered for a few seconds allowing you to shoot through targets and deal extra Magic Damage.
Your Ultimate Ability deals huge AoE Magic Damage all around you and if she hit a champion you'l be Overcharged. During this state your Q - Burst Fire will shoot 3 bullets instead of 7, shoot faster, gain 30% Attack Speed and 10% Movement Speed and have chain lightning shoot from your target. Whenever you damage a champion with a Spell or Basic Attack you will extend the duration and gain stacks of movement speed.
Summoner Spells
Thanks to its low cooldown Barrier gives really good survivability with how big the shield is.
Runes
This is the most consistent runepage for Zeri.
Fleet Footwork & Absorb Life will grant massive sustain throughout the game and Bloodline will do that too once stacked up. You can't build Life Steal until your last item so this is quite necessary.
Since Zeri likes to dive in a lot taking Conditioning + Overgrowth will help you stay alive during these fights, specially since you tend to fight to the death so your Overcharged stacks don't fall off.
Items
There's no reason to ever buy different items at the start of the game.
Tips & Tricks
- First thing to learn is to jump into practice tool and learn the angles from base to get to lane quicker. The first one is from fountain and should leave you close to the sidelane inhibitor and the second one is around where base ends and sidelane starts, it should leave you next to the Tier 2 tower.
- You can cast W, Ultimate and recall during your E dash. This mechanic is used to burst down the backline since it guarantees your Ultimate hits and makes W easier to hit.
- Since hitting terrain with your W makes it Crit and AoE you should look to do that whenever possible.
- The cast time of your W scales with your Attack Speed, the more you have the faster it comes out and the less time you're unable to move.
- Your E is an amazing tool for staying safe during laning phase. Not only can you use the long walls next to river but there's angles that go from the alcove all the way to your tower, make sure to learn them in practice tool.
- If you have enough tempo or find yourself with a good roam angle it's definitely possible to roam as Zeri given how long the walls in riven are.
- The Magic Damage you deal after dashing is only dealt to the first target hit and not everyone, you also only deal a % of the attacks damage to those secondary targets on top of not applying Life Steal or other on-hit effects. The secondary damage goes up to 100% by putting points in this ability tho.
- Whenever your E is on cooldown and you hit an enemy champion with Q it will actually reduce it by 0.5 seconds, increased to 1.5 if the attack is a Critical Strike.
- The stacks of Movement Speed you gain after Ulting work similarly, you get 1 per instance of damage but 3 with Crits.
- The Attack Range of your Q is actually 700 so one of the main skills to learn on Zeri is being able to hit it close to that max range.
- The chain lightning you do after ulting will actually keep up your Overcharged effect whilst giving you more stacks. You can look to hit minion waves to hit champions from afar and maintain the effect.
- After colliding with terrain, your W will give you vision of the area its going to hit. This is very useful to check bushes from pretty far away.
- Your Q does have a cast time but it will be faster the more Attack Speed you have. Whilst you do have a cap of 1.50 it will be increased to 1.70 during your Ultimate. As mentioned before any excess Attack Speed Zeri has will be converted to Attack Damage.
- Casting your E will reset your Basic Attack timer but you will always dash the full distance, keep this in mind when you try to use it as an AA reset.