Quick Gameplay Thoughts: September 14

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Q shape - We considered doing so earlier this year, based in part of feelings from a few of us here that it might be the right move. Did some surveying of Zyra players after they'd played a game as her to see if that would be a welcomed change. Somewhat to our surprise vote was fairly strongly in favor of keeping the current Q shape. Result could be skewed somewhat by people who really miss the circle playing less, so not being in the sample group as much, was a clear argument from current Zyra players though that a reversion wouldn't be welcomed.

Probably there were players who only palyed support Zyra? Those who play on a solo lane were not at all pleased with this change, it's a rather inconvenient skill, with a low range and absolutely not flexible. Especially against mobile champions (assassin's, br) and champions such as Cassio, Syndra, Oriana whose skill Q is more convenient.

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Regarding mid lane Zyra versus support Zyra, I think substantial changes would be needed to make Zyra a viable mid at high MMR. Her kit, right from launch until today, has had some elements that have been a better fit for the support position than mid, even if she did get significant mid play initially. In particular her E as sole defensive tool, but also farming/harass tool, leaves her really vulnerable in mid. Combine that with things like weaker than most roaming, lack of safety, we'd need to change quite a bit I believe to make her mid competitive with her support play. Attempts to narrow the gap with smaller changes, like the seed CD refund on kill, have helped a bit, but haven't moved the needle meaningfully enough at high MMR. At low/average MMR she does ok already statistically, though do see some vocal dissatisfaction from players about her mid lane state on Boards and Reddit certainly.

Preseason can be a good start for this. It would be nice if the champion could become more flexible and find a good niche, so her lore, appearance and technically she is a mage of destruction, and not someone who should help. I will wait for your changes.

It started about 3 patches ago maybe? I'm not really sure.

They never seem target anything when spawned, not even minions, unless you just target them with Q or E, and sometime even if you target them with spells, they still don't attack for some reason.

I especially find this troublesome when I'm running away (or one of my teammates) and I spawn plants so I can slow down the chasers, this used to save me so many times before, but since the introduction of this bug, I can't even save myself when I'm running away because they don't target anything, and I'm not the only one experiencing this, the other day I was watching a streamer and even he remarked about how annoying and unfair this bug is.

Also, thanks for addressing this issue, you're the best

First and for all, thank you so much for responding, it really means a lot to me and Zyramains.

Current Q shape (rectangle):

1. It was a primary tool to spawn plants out easier compared to the circle one, but with the cost of smaller width and shorter range.
2. This doesn't affect in lower/average MMR but greatly in higher MMR, especially mid lane, where enemies can easily predict and dodge her rectangular shape by simply walking a bit backward or toward her.

Old Q shape (circle):

1. Make Zyra pokes feel more impactful when rooting multiple people, and a better 1v1 dueler in mid lane because of bigger width and a tiny bit higher range compared to rectangular shape. It also feel and sound really really good when you hit it.
2. Effective for all MMR elo.
3. Might summon less plants but can easily be solved if add an outer layer to proc the seeds like the current shape.

To be honest, I never feel good at poking enemies down when the Q got changed to rectangle shape since it doesn't do much damage, easy to dodge, and feel less impact. I promise that reverting the Q shape back to circle is a right direction to satisfy all elo. You can make a vote again, but please keep it to the Zyramains since they are the one who cares about Zyra deeply and her gameplay. We don't want her to feel like a nightmare to play against, but just feel satisfy playing as her and rewarding when landing skillshots.

For those of you seeing that, when did it start (or get worse)?

8.16 I have a few recordings from 23rd August (Thursday) showing the plant AI bug, in case there is doubt.

Attempts to narrow the gap with smaller changes, like the seed CD refund on kill, have helped a bit, but haven't moved the needle meaningfully enough at high MMR.

You didn't narrow the gap, you nerfed her repeatedly. You nerfed her power curve by deleting pen. You nerfed her consistency and late game by gutting plant hp. You nerfed her itemization with the AP item "buffs" and effectively deleted her core item. She was better in mid during season 5, 6, and 7 than in season 8 after you "buffed" her for mid lane.

If the needle isn't moving, should you accept it as evidence that plant hp was over-nerfed? Why do you skip past all the other explanations and conclude that mid/supp balance is unsolvable?

At low/average MMR she does ok already statistically though do see some vocal dissatisfaction from players about her mid lane state on Boards and Reddit certainly.

Why do you think you see "some vocal dissatisfaction?" Maybe because the mid "buffs" were a shitshow? Because the hp change being a net nerf was 100% predictable? Because the "fix" to plant health that was allegedly in the works has not materialized 10 fucking months later?

But no, let's buff Janna and add more lethality to Duskblade.

In particular her E as sole defensive tool, but also farming/harass tool, leaves her really vulnerable in mid.

Hmmm...if only Q was a functional spell for farming and harass.

Combine that with things like weaker than most roaming, lack of safety, we'd need to change quite a bit I believe to make her mid competitive with her support play.

And yet the playtest team's assessment of the seed refund was that her lane phase was too oppressive. That was used to justify the plant hp nerfs, which made Zyra mid strictly worse into all of her hardest matchups. So which is it? Is she too weak and vulnerable in mid, or is it game-breakingly oppressive to require melee mids to hit plants twice? To recap, she's high-risk in mid lane and has the game duration scaling of an assassin, but she isn't allowed to be a lane bully on par with champs that are equally risky or have a mid-game victory win condition.

EDIT: Salt and snark aside, you guys are way too cavalier about changing champs and then not giving a shit when players get left behind. After 4 seasons and ~1200 ranked Zyra games, my Zyra stats this season are worse than my first season of League...when I had never played a MOBA in my life. Worse this season than when I mained her top lane in season 6 and the lethality and ardent metas of season 7. That's not because I'm a worse player now; it's because you're perfectly content to break a champion and not look back.

Your response (if there is one): ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Been seeing the bugged plant AI reports recently, someone from QA's looking into what we're tracking at present, see if that's a known issue, if it's already been fixed internally etc. For those of you seeing that, when did it start (or get worse)?

You have a much longer list of bugs than just that.

• Plants randomly pulling minion agro
• Plants randomly attacking nothing for several seconds after spawning
• Plant attacks being coded as "basic attacks" for purposes of Counterstrike and Tabi (unlike all other magic damage-dealing summoned small minions) and as "abilities" for all other purposes
• Certain on-hit effects counting as ranged attacks against plant hp
• Ult only gives half the plant damage buff stated in R tooltip since 7.20

All of these are reported numerous times in the bug forum.

Reverting Zyra's Q shape would really help her in mid. It would make her Q more reliable for waveclear/harass, which is helpful in itself but it would also take some of the pressure you mentioned off of her E.

Just few points i keep it short:

• r/Zyramains did once a survey as well and new Q won. Do you know what the reasoning behind that was? Because people consider the outer Q range as well and think if you move to old Q they would lose that. I was even attacked when I said old Q could have that, too, like „how can you know and say that do you work for Riot?“

• Zyra does not need more plants to be good midlane. When old Zyra had 2 seeds in 34s, new Zyra has 7-8. But, shes worse than before, because she needs plants with quality instead of quantity.

• Zyra mid cant work as long Q is trash. You cant max it first like you used to. Zyra cant put any skillexpression pressuring enemies with Q. I mean its a Malzahar Q with less damage, less range and more given reactiontime for the enemy. And theres still no Malz who maxes Q for anything. He just farms with E and scales. Could work for Zyra too, but she doesnt scale. You did not want Zyras Q to be the same like Syndra Q you said in S6 but thats exaxtly what it needs to be. It makes no sense to have her Q at the right angle of her E.

• Zyras per lvl stats are different from other mages (main issue HP)

Your changes to midlane looked to help her Mid, but at the end she was only more frustrating to play with those plants and lack of scaling. The biggest 2 waves of midlane Zyramains quitting was some time after MYMU S6 and Season 8 plantHP changes. Both made her worse and less satisfying on that role.

If one says her immobility is her biggest weakness in mid, they probably dont play other Champs at mid. There were Proplayers picking Zyra Mid as counterpicks in Soloq. Huhi would use Zyra as counter to Zoe, PowerofEvil would pick her into Galio successfully for some time. But, the Champ loses all its use because shes not scaling. She gets access to all her power in the first few levels and thats it. With W resets being a thing she has no use skilling her W, her Q has no scaling. Her entire kit is basically E and R after laningphase. Shes balanced around her passive. Thats the biggest issue. If you shift power out of her passive into Q and plants she will be good.

We could always make her work in some way in the Midlane. But, preseason 8 brought more issues than help for her.

I moved to LB, others to Lux, Velkoz, Ahri, Cass, Karthus and Syndra.

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Been seeing the bugged plant AI reports recently, someone from QA's looking into what we're tracking at present, see if that's a known issue, if it's already been fixed internally etc. For those of you seeing that, when did it start (or get worse)?

As I am one wich reported the bugs [and +700k mastery with Zyra in season8] I can only say that I saw them from 8.16 on. But in the 3 weeks before I did not play because I had a lot to do and partly was not at home. So maybe it was with the patch before.

What I would wish to add: Zyra gets minion aggro by spells wich was not the case before also. Can you please check this? It is not mentioned in the list when minion aggro was introduced and did imho not happen before. Can be found as bug-info also here, 2 months ago: https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/l26WMktW-minion-aggro-unintended-nerf-to-zyra

Quite sure with both bugs.

Thank you in advance.

{quoted} Q shape - We considered doing so earlier this year, based in part of feelings from a few of us here that it might be the right move. Did some surveying of Zyra players after they'd played a game as her to see if that would be a welcomed change. Somewhat to our surprise vote was fairly strongly in favor of keeping the current Q shape. Result could be skewed somewhat by people who really miss the circle playing less, so not being in the sample group as much, was a clear argument from current Zyra players though that a reversion wouldn't be welcomed.

What if we could rotate the box in a way similar to Victor's laser or Rumble's Ultimate?

Having extra range on the ability that way would be pretty nice, and more control over the targets we hit would also be fun.

In addition to my last reply your QA´s may just roll back patch by patch before and go test the reproducable part of the AI-fault within practice tool [dummy in river]. Sadly I can´t roll back so that I can´t test it myself for telling you wich patch may have been the beginning.

Although I haven't been playing a whole lot of Zyra recently, I'm wondering if this is a misunderstanding about plant AI because of changes many patches ago. I could be wrong, but if I remember correctly Zyra was being a bit too oppressive in lane. To remedy this, her plant AI was changed from automatically targeting champions if in range to attacking champs only if you hit them with a spell or if they're the closest target. Ever since Lux changes I've been playing her more, but when she's not available I play Zyra and haven't noticed any issues while playing as or against her =X

Reav3 said otherwise... https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/developer-corner/38E5AMu9-quick-gameplay-thoughts-august-29?comment=0024000000020000 Suspicious...

Wasn't that the reason Baron buff was changed to what it is now?

One Baron buff is generally enough to get at least one inhibitor, and once you get that one inhibitor, you should have a numbers advantage when you go for another (or both others at the same time).

There's also Elder Dragon, which can make you easily win a fight, even under an enemy tower, making dives super viable.

I think there are already significant tools to dealing with waveclear in the late game.

Laughs in Ornn and Sejuani. At least shaco is playable.