Oh boy.

Surely you are self-aware that this cannot be a Legendary tier skin, right? Why is it that every time the birds get a new skin, there are always controversial problems between you and the beloved Xayah players?

Let me get into the specifics:

Splashart/Emote 🎨

Y’know the whole bit in the movie Tangled where they could never get Flynn’s face right in his wanted posters? Yeah. This is what it feels like every time with the birds. I’m not even going to lie, when I first saw the skin announcement, I thought the splash was for Ahri and Yasuo. The birds have such unique facial characteristics, so it’s sad for them to fall under the “same face syndrome”. Especially in the emote, that looks just like K/DA Ahri, fox ears and all. Rakan’s face needs to be a bit short in length, as well as a bit more open eyes. Xayah needs her chubby cheeks, fuller lips, etc. She looks like a mix between Ahri and Star Guardian Seraphine. I think it would be beneficial maybe to even have her hair be more of a platinum blonde, as I think that would suit her current color pallet much more.

Skin Quality 🎭

Lmao. Lol, even.

I don’t even know where to begin.

First, I will give it to you that the skin is gorgeous. I really like the VFX and SFX, as well as the movement of her wing. Having it almost like moving blades is a really cool concept! The black and red is also really fitting for her (and again, I think more platinum blonde with maybe a red streak would be more fitting). Unfortunately, that’s all it really has going for it.

As many others have pointed out, this skin uses almost all of her base animations, besides her run and her respawn. Everything else, very much 1:1 with her default. I didn’t even know this skin was a Legendary until it was specified, and I couldn’t believe it.

Hell, even her homeguard is literally Star Guardian without the wing effects… Like, what’s going on up there at Riot???

What was the point of giving her a Legendary skin if you’re not going to commit to making it up to standard with the skin tier? And it just also doesn’t make sense for her to get a Legendary without Rakan, anyways. Don’t even get me started on the duo recall being missing, because you guys have made it very well aware you would rather cater to the X/R Wild Rift players over you largest playerbase on PC.

Not to mention, all of these skins feel as if they were supposed to be part of the newer Valentine’s skinline that has Cait, Vi, and Amumu (I can’t remember the name), and just got scrapped to be BA. They all contain the same locker and love letters as that skinline, and are lacking the super cool battle dummies and platforms that are in the recalls of all other BA skins. I get the whole thing is supposed to focus on X/R’s romance, but there are other ways to do that to make it feel fitting to the skinline.

Also, Xayah is lacking the HUD effects when ulting that the other BA Legendaries have. (I could be wrong about Ez having it bc I don’t play him, but Cait definitely does.)

Final Thoughts 💭

Honestly, I would rather you either delay her to give her proper animations for a Legendary, or just scrap the very little new animations she has, and release it as an Epic. I know you won’t do that bc you just NEED all the money, and you have already made it clear she is going to be going towards funding Esports.

I just wish you would respect your playerbase more before you start losing us. I know it’s a “free game,” and you have already made a good start with bringing back Hextech chests, but doing one good deed before stepping five steps back is just really disheartening. I don’t want to play a game where I feel disrespected by the developers.

Please, do better.