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@Repertoir Really detailed Feedback for you after spamming Zyra Mid for few days

Shaian·3/7/2018, 9:36:10 PM·42 votes·8,628 views

Zyra was never so close into being a good Midlaner since her rework as right now. Her Items are in a good spot, she has several choice (probably more than most Mages). We have Tanks, Mages/Antimages, Hypercarries with Melee supports. The Meta is in her favor. But, Zyra is not quite hitting the mark. Her winrate did not change since she was considered "too weak for both roles since preseason". We know and have read several times the new runes were not in her favor, on the other hand AP items got kinda compensated for the mediocre Sorcery tree for mages. But, this is not the point of my post.

I want to talk about what sucks on Zyra. Especially for Midlane, but as a Champ too.

Let's look at the enemies Zyra faces midlane and how good she should be against these Champions.

We have Melees (Assassins+Galio), Midrange Mages, Artillery poke mages.

Zyra is supposed to be getting smashed by poke and to be weak (but with opportunities to fight) against Assassins and she should be a good duelists against Midrange Mages, who come too close to her.

Let's talk about what Zyra should be good against, since i feel like thats the most important part on making her a good midlaner. First thing, what Champions do i mean, which she should face?

Mostly these Anivia Azir Cassiopeia Orianna Syndra Taliyah Viktor Vladimir are the Champions Zyra wants to compete with. Now what is her problem?

First of all, she gets significantly squishier than any other mage (except Anivia) with every level. Second and thats the more important part, her Q makes it too clunky to lane and teamfight and this is why:

The Hitbox does not match or synergys in any way with her kit except her passive. Its a Malzahar Q, with significantly less range (100), less damage, less AP ratio, which offers more reaction time and has a more visible hitbox. I think its harder to hit than it should be. 800 Range is a reasonable number, but with this hitbox its significantly lower and less effective compared to circle-shaped-AoE. Some mages even have >800 range while still having a circleshaped spell. I get the point of this new Q to make use of the seeds she additionally spawns, it just feels terrible to play. It makes sense on Malzahar, because of his other spells, but not on Zyra. Lets get into a teamfight. My Thresh does land a hook, pulls himself into the enemy team and flays 4 people towards us. I am able to get a great 4 man snare, press R thats so much AoE and the dream moment of every Zyra player or Controlmage players. But, as final spell i cast my Q, in a right angle towards my E, meaning i can only hit 1 or 2 with it instead of all 4 that I snared with my root. That doesnt feel great to play, but really awkward. So all my enemies got to do is, when i cast my Q run up or down, and when i cast my E left or right. Deadly Spines is such a telegraphed spell for what it actually does. I feel like there is too much power put into plant spawning (especially with his big secondary hitbox) than in it being a good damagespell on its own. Deadly Bloom was more satisfying to play, while having the same castrange and the same delay as the new Q. So what i suggest is giving her her old Q hitbox, with maybe a secondary circleshaped "plantspawn-hitbox", until you decide to give her major passivechanges.

But, why did you change Zyra's Q hitbox? Yes, plants. You saw my frustration in that videoclip against the Rengar. https://twitter.com/Shaian1112/status/968652789713915905

Now first of all. Zyra is supposed to be a disruptive control mage. A controlmage makes people afraid of straight up and randomly diving her. In her strong moments you are supposed to run away than run into her. However, at the moment it is just too easy to charge into her. Melee attacks onehit plants. You justified this change with "It is a big trade for a melee to auto a plant". Is it that big though?

Half of Zyras damage is balanced into being distributed by plants. In what case isnt it worth to get rid of that? What else can Zyra do? Autoattack an Assassin to death while he uses one attack to deny 50% of your damage? In this clip Rengar automatically killed the first plant just by how being snared affects your champ without him actively wanting to get rid of it. My plant died without dealing any damage and it couldnt get empowered either. EWRQW is the standard combo for 2 plants of each type. But, too slow to empower my first plant against a melee. The empowered plant took 4 damage by him healing himself with W. He uses his E to get rid of the remaining 8HP, but he could have just used another autoattack to kill it. He did not need his E to kill me few seconds later within a short moment anyway. Whats his tradeoff for using his E? There is none. Its always worth. If my plants are so squishy in a 1v1 and get cleared without the enemy noticing, how squishy are they in a 5v5? I try to unisolate myself with a plant when I'm afraid a Kha'zix might jump on me in a fight or 1v1. What happens? He autos the plant and turns on me. I can't use my experience of having mained this Champ for almost 5 years. I dont think I am the one who has to adapt in regards to her plant HP. I was adapting for so much and defended her Rework in 6.9 like noone else did. It just sucks right now.

Back to Rengar's E though. Single target spells oneshot plants, too. What does that mean in Midlane? A Ryze using my plants for his own waveclear and if it bothers him he uses any ability to kill it. There is no big tradeoff. What else is oneshotting Zyra's plants? Cassio can charge into me laugh while getting hit by QW, oneshot my plants with an E and do Cassiothings. She's able to kill Vinelashers before they auto her. She wont get slowed. Whats her tradeoff? She benefits from standing in my dangerzone killing everything on her way to me. Its not any different for a spell like Viktor Q too. It doesnt matter if you cant cast it on Zyra. You will outdamage her, just by denying her damage.

There is no worse feeling than seeing a plant die within an eyeblink. Especially when they cant even do a single attack, or when they cant get empowered though you spammed R the moment you casted W. I dont mind my passive seeds. But, dont make my W seeds as bad because her passive is too hard to balance. Differentiate their plant HP's at least, their seeds got different colors already. There are so many stupid cases and bugs like Corki autos, his E, or Karthus Crit Q oneshotting plants. Seeing plants die onehit every game just by statikks is just stupid as well. Electric is supposed to be weak vs grass :P

I think her Q and her plants are the main reason she doesnt see any play in Mid. And she is not doing very well on support either. I remember a Rioter saying in season 5 "Zyra's cant get buffed, because she sits on a 53-55% winrate and it was always like that. She is sucessful fulfilling her niche and as long her winrate doesnt drop way lower she's in an ok spot for us."

Her niche ddnt change. I cant tell about her playrate. But, her winrate dropped in a patch which was supposed to be really good for her and is at 49% right now. She just needs some help.

Thanks for reading

(PS: In case you revisit Zyra, maybe you could look into changing her manacosts so her W costs something as well? I found myself liking Seraphs on Zyra over Ludens (never thought that would happen lol), but shes mediocre at stacking it, since you changed it to mana-expenditure. I finish it later than my opponents, but i still like to buy it since it feels so good)

48 Comments

RiotRiotRepertoir3/7/2018, 11:42:48 PM37 votes

Hello. I feel bad for asking this, but can I get a tl;dr of what you think the main issues are and what your suggestions are so I can think about the core stuff? I respect and value that you spent the time writing this up, but I've got a day packed with meetings and what-not and can't give it the time it deserves atm.

Fairyfleur3/8/2018, 12:51:00 AM5 votes

As someone who might not main Zyra but likes playing her a lot with a decent amount of mastery I would love a Q shape change, a circle would feel much better for mid, along with some added bulk to her and her (w?) plants.

LostFr0st3/7/2018, 11:56:41 PM3 votes

I wouldn't care if they buffed her plant's HP if they also nerfed the time the seeds can stay on the ground. They have a ton of zoning potential.

Her counterplay is on a similar level to GP barrels in that respect.

5050BS3/7/2018, 10:15:33 PM3 votes

I second this whole post. I have made posts just like this pointing out the same issues.

Her Plants die SO FAST its not funny at all.

My thoughts is to change the plants to not be targetable or damageble but make their duration only 4s (current plants dont live longer then 4s) If you Re Q or E a plant it adds 2s to its duration. If you Ult plants it adds 4s to its duration.

You can lower the plants damage some because they will actually be on the battle field for a fight and so can do damage.

Now we would need to change the AI of them some too.

On Spawn plants target and lock on to target unless directed differently in order below

They lock to closest champ in range If she Auto attacks a Champ they lock to that target If she Q or E or Ults a Champ they lock to closest champ hit by those. If a Champ attacks Zyra with a single target attack or Auto attack, they lock to that champ. If a Monster/Minion attacks Zyra, they lock to the monster/minion They Lock to closest minion/monster They target closest champ

This would make her competitive for midlane

P0IS0N IVY3/7/2018, 11:03:52 PM3 votes

Yeah as a Zyra main my biggest issue with her is the plant hp changes. It feels so terrible to play when they get one shot by accident. Riot stated that they think she should only put up plants when the opponent is in a position where they can't fight back, but when you give plants 1 hp against melees, it better for them to just turn around and auto once rather than step away.

The AP changes haven't been friendly to her either. Zyra used to be able to have magic pen and % health damage in the same item and now they're separate.

notice me Sin pi3/8/2018, 5:03:02 AM2 votes

if zyra's E did a slight knockback on 1st target hit (root still applies), then i think that would help with zyra landing Q on multiple snared targets. Certainly not going to solve the problem as a whole but i think it would be a decent bandaid solution

SettDownShutUp3/8/2018, 1:26:29 AM2 votes

I feel her ult needs adjusting, as currently it's worse than a gragas barrel in terms of abrupt and instant AOE damage. Since the damage is frontloaded, and the knock-up comes later, it feels weird. What if the ult slowed at first, and then snapped up dealing the damage?

BobaFlautist3/8/2018, 10:14:14 PM1 votes

I think Zyra suffers from many of the same problems as Heimerdinger (and as Malz did when most of his damage was in W).

Pets/turrets (which I'm gonna use to mean stationary pets of any sort, so plants qualify) will fundamentally fall into two categories when trying to all-in:

  1. It's worth focusing damage on to them to kill them before the champion.
  2. It's not worth focusing them, and you should just try to burst out the champion.

The problem is that it's really really hard not to have them fall into the second category. Assuming the summoner is squishy (they all are) and assuming the summoner has meaningful damage outside of the pets (they all do), then focusing their pets will often naturally become more costly than effective.

There are a few ways to counter this, but Riot has seemed to mostly go for "Make pets die really quickly - but resistant to aoe". That way they can't be cleared for free just by using your aoe spells, but they still die relatively quickly to focus.

Another issue is that it's really hard to make control mages that work as control mages but aren't excessively anti-melee - the fundamental idea of a control mage is that they set up a space as their territory, and they zone/punish using short ranges and slow-ramping abilities; but most melee champions don't have the tools to avoid or play around their claimed territory. Personally, I think it would be interesting if Zyra's plants had a "warm up" delay, during which they were untargetable but didn't do anything, but lasted longer, but I'm sure that would create it's own problems.

TL;DR it's really hard to allow summoner mages like Zyra, Malz, and Heim to keep their identity as summoners without making them too good at countering melees or to weak against poke/aoe.

swanington3/9/2018, 12:42:16 AM1 votes

As a zyra support main.... You are doing it wrong. Position yourself better. She's disgustingly strong right now. And you shouldn't be able to 1v1 a rengar.

Edit: also position your plants better.

meteorbreaker6/25/2018, 12:55:11 AM1 votes

And on it all ended. sadly it turned out.

Sunorio1/15/2020, 9:28:46 PM1 votes

Poor zyra ( it's my main ) she's amazing but so easy to kill . The damage of others champion are so strong for her .

Mossy Lungs3/8/2018, 2:42:43 AM1 votes

I am sad that the plant champion is Zyra. Not sad that Zyra herself gets to be that champion, but that because she is the plant champ there won't be another (more than likely) and Zyra's kit is so lackluster for the theme of plant summoning mage. Feels lame to just spam your Q E on top of these seeds that just spawn semi-randomly. Also, she has a bad case of skill-less snowballing: once you are decently fed and have a good amount of items in team fights you literally just keymash QWER. I would know. I literally just keep my mouse in the middle of the fight and start mashing, it's filthy lol. But back to my point, I wish she had more tools to summon different types of plants, and that her gameplay didn't revolve around spamming lane with as many plants at once as possible. To me she should be more equipped to summon specialized plant types, it'd be cooler... I always thought Illaoi's passive seemed like it would've been perfect for Zyra, replace the tentacles with living plants.

hhaavviikk3/8/2018, 11:55:27 AM1 votes

every tried teamfighting when the enemy has a singed? since his Q ticks several times a second your plants will die in a nanosecond to his Q poison leaving you with nothing and it frustrates me every time

MorgManBasher3/8/2018, 12:36:04 PM1 votes

Honestly I don't think Zyra mid is that bad as long as you are running minion dematerizer for wave clear.

Mewden3/8/2018, 2:24:06 PM1 votes

Following your thread I have created one too asking to bring her old passive back --> https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/pO6q9eb8-zyra-passive-revert

As I tried to explain, that passive was awesome/funny and the current one feels so bad since you can't even control where seeds respawn (+ now you can get seeds from minion /assists / kills), so it would be great if they could consider it along with your Q and plants health proposal.

Professor Ward3/8/2018, 9:57:52 PM1 votes

I have a 76% winrate over 21 games on zyra after never playing her support until this season. Learning zyra fully, especially how to land her abilities effectively, while seeding, helps more than you would ever imagine.

A rylais rush combined with q seed harrass, her aoe e root, and aoe ult, make her unmatched in control as a support. She procs rylais from safety far too easily, and does burst damage that is insane on a support budget.

Idk if i would recommend her mid, but i see any buff to her botlane power as over the top at this point.

TL:DR 76% winrate zyra who would cry if she were made ANY stronger.

Rouwhorst3/8/2018, 9:58:40 PM1 votes

Your video clip link is bugged. Remove the () because the forums are stupid The () are used in defining a link, but do so incorrectly as they take the last ), instead of the first ). You can use other symbols such as {}, [] or <> though!